The Influence of Temperature and Host Gender on Bacterial Communities in the Asian Citrus Psyllid.

The Asian citrus psyllid, Kuwayama is the primary vector for (CLas), which causes a destructive disease in citrus plants. Bacterial symbionts are important determinants of insect physiology, and they can be impacted by many external factors. Temperature is an important abiotic factor affecting insect physiology, and it is also known that differences in symbiont proportions may vary in different insect genders. To date, it is unclear how the symbionts of are affected by temperature and gender. This study used high-throughput sequencing of 16S ribosomal RNA amplicons to determine how temperature and gender affect the bacterial communities present in . We identified 27 amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) belonging to 10 orders, seven classes, and five phyla. The dominant phylum was Proteobacteria (99.93%). Other phyla, including Firmicutes, Bacteroidota, Deinococcota, Cyanobacteria, and Actinobacteriota, were less abundant (<0.1%). (71.77-81.59%) and (18.39-28.22%) were the predominant taxa in all samples. Under high-temperature treatment, was more common in females, while had a higher abundance in males. In males, was more abundant under low-temperature treatments than under high-temperature treatments. In contrast, showed a higher abundance under high-temperature treatments than under low-temperature treatments. An RT-qPCR (quantitative real-time PCR) approach confirmed the results obtained with high-throughput DNA sequencing. Our results provide a basis for understanding the co-adaptation of and its symbionts to environmental temperature stress.