Termite-Like Phylogenetic Conservation of Gut Microbiota in Passalid Beetles Suggests Evolutionary Convergence in Decaying Wood Degradation

Passalid beetles’ anterior hindgut microbiomes are structured mainly by host evolutionary history, with phylogenetic relatedness explaining substantially more variation than geographic locality.

• Why it matters: Decaying wood is nutritionally poor, and passalid digestion depends on gut symbionts; understanding what shapes these communities is key to explaining Passalidae evolution.
• What they did: High-throughput 16S rRNA sequencing compared bacterial and archaeal symbiont lineages in anterior hindguts from passalid beetles across two Colombian Caribbean mountain systems, testing effects of co-occurrence versus phylogenetic relatedness.
• The result: Bacterial and archaeal communities show phylosymbiosis at different scales, and nearly half of bacterial reads remain unclassified at the genus level, supporting Passalidae as a comparative model for lignocellulose-feeding symbiosis evolution.

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