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. 2025 Jan 6;16(1):47.
doi: 10.3390/insects16010047.

Influences of Rearing Season, Host Plant, and Silkworm Species on Gut Bacterial Community

Chang Chen  1 , Yujuan Hao  1 , Jiaqi Yang  1 , Jingyu Zhang  1 , Huan Wang  1 , Yanqun Liu  1
Affiliations

Influences of Rearing Season, Host Plant, and Silkworm Species on Gut Bacterial Community

Chang Chen et al. Insects. .

Abstract

The gut bacterial community plays many important roles in the production of nutrients and digestion. Antheraea pernyi and A. yamamai (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae) are two traditional sources of human food, as well as being silk-producing insects. In the present study, the influences of rearing season (spring and autumn), silkworm species (A. pernyi and A. yamamai), and host plant (Quercus wutaishanica and Salix viminalis) on gut microbiota diversity were tested using Illumina MiSeq technology. We found that the bacterial composition and diversity of larvae reared in the autumn are elevated compared to those of larvae from the spring. Silkworm species played an important role in the gut bacterial community. Host plants also affected the diversity of the intestinal flora of the insects: the diversity of the intestinal flora of A. pernyi reared using S. viminalis was higher than those reared using Q. wutaishanica. Our findings provide insights into the gut microbial environment in edible insects.

Keywords: edible insects; gut bacterial community; host plant; rearing season; silkworm species.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The funders had no role in the design of this study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of the data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Richness rarefaction and Shannon index analysis of the silkworm samples used. (a) Rarefaction curves of OTUs clustered at a 97% sequence identity across samples. (b) Rarefaction curves of the Shannon index according to OTUs.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Shared bacterial types at different classification levels among samples. (a) Venn analysis of the midgut of A. pernyi (AY_SV_A) and A. yamamai (AY_SV_A) larvae fed on S. viminalis. (b) Venn analysis of A. pernyi larvae fed on Q. wutaishanica (AP_QW_A) and S. viminalis (AP_SV_A). (c) Venn analysis of A. pernyi larvae reared in spring (AP_QW_S) and autumn (AP_QW_A).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Bacterial community dynamics among samples. (a) Boxplot of species richness (number of OTUs). (b) Boxplot of community diversity measured using the Shannon index. (c) PCoA plot showing the variation in community structure. Principal components (PCs) 1 and 2 represented 30.54% and 30.09% of the variance, respectively. * indicates signifcant differences (p < 0.05).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Comparison of the bacterial community among the different samples. (a) The dominant phyla percentage for AY_SV_A (n = 3), AP_SV_A (n = 4), AP_QW_A (n = 4), and AP_QW_S (n = 3). Bacteria with an abundance less than 1% are classified as others. (b–d) Heatmap of bacterial communities based on the average value of the top 15 dominant genera for AY_SV_A and AP_SV_A, AP_QW_A and AP_SV_A, and AP_QW_A (autumn) and AP_ QW_S (spring), respectively. Rows and columns represent the samples and the dominant genera, respectively. A deeper red color indicates a closer distance between the samples, and a deeper blue color indicates a larger distance between the samples.
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