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Geographic Variation of Bacterial Communities Associated with Cotton Fleahopper, Pseudatomoscelis seriatus1

Abstract. Cotton fleahopper, Pseudatomoscelis seriatus (Reuter) (Hemiptera: Miridae), is native to the southern United States and widespread throughout regions where cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is commercially grown. It is considered a major cotton pest only in certain cotton-growing regions, while in other areas it rarely reaches pest status. Bacterial symbionts associated with sucking insects have been linked to their pest status on their insect hosts. We tested whether variation in bacterial communities within P. seriatus correlated with pest status of the insect on cotton. We used 454 pyrosequencing of the bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene to characterize the bacterial microbiota associated with P. seriatus from eight cotton-growing regions in the United States. We found 65 bacterial taxa in the dataset, and three phyla, Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidota, accounted for 78.5, 16.3, and 4.6% of the bacterial community. Overall bacterial composition and diversity did not correlate with P. seriatus pest status or geographical origin. However, abundances of three taxa, Spiroplasma sp., Swaminathania, sp., and Aureimonas sp., were significantly different between regions in which P. seriatus occurs as major versus occasional pest. We found Pseudomonas spp. in all samples, with different strains/species in different samples, suggesting variant Pseudomonas could be a primary endosymbiont of P. seriatus. Characterization of the P. seriatus bacterial microbiota showed it was distinct from other well-characterized hemipteran herbivores. Whether variation in microbiota corresponds with variation in traits relevant to pest control warrants further investigation.