R scripts for the analyses in Kriefall et al. (2024) — Abiotic factors shape mosquito microbiomes that enhance host development — published in The ISME Journal.
This study examined how abiotic larval habitat conditions (botanical detritus type, temperature, and microbial dispersal) shape the microbiome of the mosquito Aedes albopictus, and how specific bacterial strains interact with those conditions to influence larval development.
Experiment I — Microbiome assembly: Gnotobiotic Ae. albopictus larvae were reared across 12 fully factorial treatments (3 detrital infusions × 2 temperatures × 2 dispersal levels). 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing (V4 region) was used to characterize bacterial communities in adult mosquitoes and mesocosm water.
Experiment II — Larval development: The role of two focal strains (Chryseobacterium sp. CHRY1 and Pseudomonas sp. PSEU2) in mosquito emergence success was tested across strawberry guava and pure water infusions using gnotobiotic mesocosms.
- Raw reads (16S rRNA gene amplicons) processed with MetaFlow|mics
- Taxonomy assigned against SILVA v138.1
- Downstream R analyses use
phyloseq,glmmTMB,coxme, andggeffects
Sequencing data are deposited in NCBI (see paper for accession). Annotated R code and ASV output are available in this repository.
Kriefall NG, Seabourn PS, Yoneishi NM, Davis K, Nakayama KK, Weber DE, Hynson NA, Medeiros MCI (2024). Abiotic factors shape mosquito microbiomes that enhance host development. The ISME Journal, 18(1), wrae181. https://doi.org/10.1093/ismejo/wrae181