Anopheles albimanus natural microbiota is altered within one generation of laboratory colonization

Research on mosquito-microbe interactions may lead to new tools for mosquito and mosquito-borne disease control. To date, such research has largely utilized laboratory-reared mosquitoes that typically lack the microbial diversity of wild populations. A logical progression in this area involves working under controlled settings using field-derived mosquitoes or, in most cases, their progeny. Thus, an understanding of how laboratory colonization affects the assemblage of mosquito microbiota would aid in advancing mosquito microbiome studies and their applications beyond laboratory settings. Using high throughput 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing, we characterized the internal and cuticle surface microbiota of F1 progeny of wild-caught adult Anopheles albimanus from four locations in Guatemala. A total of 132 late instar larvae and 135 2-5day old, non-blood-fed virgin adult females that were reared under identical laboratory conditions, were pooled (3 individuals/pool) and analyzed. F1 larvae from different maternal sites showed different microbial compositions (p=0.001; F = 9.5), but these differences were absent at the adult stage (p=0.12; F =1.6). These results suggest that field-acquired mosquito microbiota may be lost in as early as the first generation of colonization under normal laboratory conditions, thus, requiring adjustments to maintain field-derived microbiota. This is the first time that the microbiota of F1 progeny of wild-caught mosquitoes has been characterized in relation to maternal collection site. Our findings provide a comprehensive background for studying how parentage and environmental conditions differentially or concomitantly affect mosquito microbiome composition, and how this can be exploited in advancing mosquito microbiome studies and their applications beyond laboratory settings.