Metabarcode characterization of bacterial and fungal communities from diverse North American wild bees

Recent years have seen a rapidly growing interest in the study of gut microbiomes across many groups of insects. Within bees, much of this work has focused on managed species of agricultural importance, such as honey and bumble bees. However, the microbiomes of unmanaged wild bee species are also important to study in order to understand the range of microbial diversity and composition associated with pollinating insects vital to agricultural and non-agricultural contexts. We used bacteria (16S) and fungi (ITS1) metabarcoding to identify the microbiome of twenty previously unstudied species representing a diverse sampling of wild bees common to eastern North America. Using this dataset, we determined the alpha and beta diversity across twelve genera and four families. Additionally, we conducted a broad phylogenetic comparison of bacterial communities including an inclusive range of previously published bee data. Overall, this research provides insights into the microbial associates of several wild bee species for the first time, as well as the broadest investigation to date into patterns of phylogenetic conservation in bacterial communities across all bee families.