SRA

The aim of this study was to assess the impacts of two fungal entomopathogens with different infection strategies on the gut micro- and mycobiota of Camponotus floridanus over time; Ophiocordyceps camponoti-floridani and Beauveria bassiana. Examining the microbiome during infection could offer a better understanding of entomopathogenic infection and manipulation methods and advise biopesticide applications. Furthermore, the mycobiome, despite its significant contribution in gut ecology, is still frequently neglected in microbiome studies. To improve our limited understanding of fungal infections in insects, we sampled fungal-infected ants across the infection period and characterized the gut micro- and mycobiome. We targeted the V4 region of the 16S SSU rRNA gene for bacterial metabarcoding, and the ITS2 region of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) gene for fungal metabarcoding. Results found that Ophiocordyceps had measurable impacts on the ant host micro- and mycobiome, whereas Beauveria did not. Additionally, ants sampled during Ophiocordyceps-adaptive summiting behavior possessed a significantly different micro- and mycobiome composition when compared the healthy controls and sample timepoints surrounding manipulation. These findings suggest that the host micro- and mycobiome may be involved in the manipulation strategy of Ophiocordyceps.