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Comparative Study
. 2004 Jul;70(7):3884-92.
doi: 10.1128/AEM.70.7.3884-3892.2004.

Comparison of Euryarchaea strains in the guts and food-soil of the soil-feeding termite Cubitermes fungifaber across different soil types

S E Donovan  1 , K J Purdy, M D Kane, P Eggleton
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Comparison of Euryarchaea strains in the guts and food-soil of the soil-feeding termite Cubitermes fungifaber across different soil types

S E Donovan et al. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2004 Jul.

Abstract

Termites are an important component of tropical soil communities and have a significant effect on the structure and nutrient content of soil. Digestion in termites is related to gut structure, gut physicochemical conditions, and gut symbiotic microbiota. Here we describe the use of 16S rRNA gene sequencing and terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis to examine methanogenic archaea (MA) in the guts and food-soil of the soil-feeder Cubitermes fungifaber Sjostedt across a range of soil types. If these MA are strictly vertically inherited, then the MA in guts should be the same in all individuals even if the soils differ across sites. In contrast, gut MA should reflect what is present in soil if populations are merely a reflection of what is ingested as the insects forage. We show clear differences between the euryarchaeal communities in termite guts and in food-soils from five different sites. Analysis of 16S rRNA gene clones indicated little overlap between the gut and soil communities. Gut clones were related to a termite-derived Methanomicrobiales cluster, to Methanobrevibacter and, surprisingly, to the haloalkaliphile Natronococcus. Soil clones clustered with Methanosarcina, Methanomicrococcus, or rice cluster I. T-RFLP analysis indicated that the archaeal communities in the soil samples differed from site to site, whereas those in termite guts were similar between sites. There was some overlap between the gut and soil communities, but these may represent transient populations in either guts or soil. Our data do not support the hypothesis that termite gut MA are derived from their food-soil but also do not support a purely vertical transmission of gut microflora.

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Figures

FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
Inferred phylogenetic relationships between archaeal C. fungifaber gut and soil sequences from site B (Kribi) reference taxa and other environmental clones. This is a Logdet/Paralinear distance tree based on 61% (the estimated number of variable sites) of 718 alignable nucleotides. Bootstrap (100 replicates) values of >70% are shown at the nodes. Gp, group.
FIG. 2.
FIG. 2.
TaqI restriction analysis of euryarchaeal PCR products from C. fungifaber gut and soil samples from five different tropical soils on a 4% NuSieve (3:1) ethidium bromide-stained agarose gel in 1× TAE. M, Hyperladder I (Bioline). Sites are labeled A to E as in Table 1.
FIG. 3.
FIG. 3.
T-RFLP profiles from gut and soil samples from five sites. T-RFs in boldface are those found in ≥4 of the 5 gut or soil samples; those in italics are unique to that sample. T-RF 984-1006 is a combined group since these all appear to be related to Methanobrevibacter.
FIG. 4.
FIG. 4.
Jaccard cluster analysis (group average link) of T-RFLP analysis data from soil and termite guts samples from the five sites analyzed. The data were analyzed as described by Dunbar et al. (14).
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