Arthropod parasites, which generally have nutrient poor diets, are dependent on their bacterial symbionts for development, nutrient acquisition, and immune response initiation. As the body of research on parasite-microbiome interactions continues to grow, it is becoming more apparent that the parasite is not a perfect island that physically and biologically constrains the microbiome. The composition and diversity of the microbiome and abundance of its members are influenced by both its immediate environment (the parasite) and broader environment (where the parasite lives). Habitat fragment size and distance from a source are important variables influencing community composition of plants and animals, but their role in microbial community composition and variation is unknown. It is hypothesized that evolution and ecology of the arthropod parasite would influence its microbiome more than broader environmental factors, but this hypothesis has not been tested. To compare the relative influence of broader environment to that of parasite constraint on its microbiome, we applied high-throughput sequencing of the V4 region of 16S rRNA from 226 obligate ectoparasitic bat flies (8 species) collected from 155 bats (5 species) from 10 habitat fragments in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil.
Results/Conclusions
Environmental changes resulting from habitat fragmentation may have consequences for the diversity and abundance of bacteria in the microbiome of arthropod parasites, which may be detrimental to persistence of parasite populations. Preliminary results suggest that habitat fragment size may influence diversity of the microbiome, with smaller fragments supporting less diverse arthropod microbiome communities. Future conservation of arthropod parasites should include research on the community assembly of the parasite microbiome.