Host Development and Environment Influence the Microbiomes of Aquatic Insects and Riparian Spiders.

In Ontario, Canada, insect developmental stage is the primary driver of bacterial microbiome structure, with larval communities more diverse and enriched for feeding-related functions across aquatic insects and riparian spiders.

• Why it matters: Metamorphosis and wastewater-related exposures could reshape host-associated microbes, but how life stage and effluent contact jointly influence these communities was unclear.
• What they did: They sampled larvae and adults from three aquatic insect families and riparian spider predators upstream versus downstream of WWTPs, then profiled bacterial microbiomes and predicted functions from sequencing data.
• The result: WWTP effluent caused selective microbial filtering and downstream enrichment of wastewater-linked taxa and xenobiotic degradation pathways, while vertically transmitted endosymbionts (Rickettsiella, Wolbachia) decreased in aquatic insects without detectable overall diversity change.

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