RNA metabarcode
The total number of reads processed was 848,460,028. The final number of contigs obtained was 457,282 totaling 301,840,624 bp with N50 of 711 bp. The number of ORFs identified reached 411,387. Results obtained from metatranscriptome analysis were in accordance with the results from DNA metabarcode analysis. In the Bacteria domain, the phylum Gammaproteobacteria dominated (48% of reads, Fig. 4); however, not so strongly as in DNA metabarcode analysis and other classes, mainly Betaproteobacteria (21% of reads) and Actinomycetia (6.6% of reads), were also abundant (Fig. 4). The most abundant bacterial genera revealed by DNA metabarcode were also detected in RNA metabarcode, especially genus Erwinia , which belongs among the most abundant genera with almost 5% of reads. Another highly represented genera wereKlebsiella and Enterobacter (both belonging to Enterobacteriaceae) (Fig. 4).
Although RNA was isolated from the insect’s gut, 91% of eukaryotic reads belong to Arthropoda. The second most abundant eukaryotic phylum was Nematoda with 1.9% of reads. Fungal domain took only 0.35% of reads which almost all belong to Ascomycota. Similarly to DNA metabarcode analysis, the most abundant fungi in the metatranscriptome dataset were yeasts from the class Saccharomycetes, followed by Sordariomycetes (Fig. 4). Other presented classes include Pezizomycetes, Eurotiomycetes, Leotiomycetes, Lecanoromycetes and Orbilliomycetes. However, these classes have minor representation.