| Larvae of barley pest (Zophobas atratus), mealworms (Tenebrio molitor)， dark mealworm (Tenebrio obscurus), and Galleria mellonella (Galleria mellonella) can all feed on and degrade polystyrene foam plastics. During the process of insect degradation of plastics, the enteric gut microbial community plays an important role. The existing reports focus on the research of plastic-degradable bacteria in insect enteric gut, while research on their enteric gut fungi relatively lacks. Through ITS rDNA amplicon sequencing, it was found that the fungal community structure in the enteric gut of these four insects were basically similar. At the phylum level, Ascomycota had an absolute advantage. At the family level, Saccharomycetales and Pleosporaceae had high relatively abundant. At the genus level, Diutina, Candida, Alternaria, Nectriaceae, and Fusarium predominate. 33 fungal core OTUs were identified, with sequences accounting for 51.2%-94.6% of the total sequences in each insect. OTU 1 Alternaria was relatively abundant in all samples（17.7%-80.6%）, indicating its prevalence and importance in the insect enteric gut. FUNGuild predicts that the majority of the core fungal communities are saprophytic fungi, playing a role in material cycling and degradation, making them potential plastic degradable fungi. This article reveals the existence of core fungal communities in the enteric gut of the insects that have the potential to degrade polystyrene foam plastics. It provides new enlightenment for further elucidating the mechanism of insect plastic degradation and exploring microbial strains for plastic degradation. |
