Characterization of the Tenebrio molitor Microbiome Collected From Different Farms in South Korea

ABSTRACT Microbiome research has advanced in recent years due to technological developments and significant cost reductions in analytical methodologies. Research on the microbiota in insects is limited compared with other animal species. This study was performed to compare the bacterial compositions in mealworms ( Tenebrio molitor ) among different farms in Korea. For this study, mealworm larval samples were collected from three different farms in Korea, and genomic DNA was extracted. The extracted DNA was sequenced using primers from the V3–V4 region of 16S rRNA to identify the bacterial community. The raw data were analyzed using the QIIME2 pipeline to determine the diversity, taxonomy, and differential abundance among groups. We comprehensively characterized insect‐associated bacterial families in 23 individuals belonging to six phyla by sequencing 32,827 amplicons of 16S rRNA genes. A total of 637,204 sequence reads from the live and dead larvae of T. molitor from three different farms were obtained. After quality control, denoising, merging, and chimera removal, a total of 637,204 reads were obtained, identifying 32,827 bacterial amplicon sequence variants in the live and dead larvae of T. molitor from three different farms. The insect microbiota was dominated by Firmicutes (52.6%) and Proteobacteria (46.3%).