Organic Waste Substrates Induce Important Shifts in Gut Microbiota of Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens L.): Coexistence of Conserved, Variable, and Potential Pathogenic Microbes

The sustainable utilization of black soldier fly (BSF) for recycling organic waste into nutrient-rich biomass, such as high-quality protein additive, is gaining momentum, and its microbiota is thought to play important roles in these processes. Several studies have characterized the BSF gut microbiota in different substrates and locations; nonetheless, in-depth knowledge on community stability, consistency of member associations, pathogenic associations, and microbe-microbe and host-microbe interactions remains largely elusive. In this study, we characterized the bacterial and fungal communities of BSF larval gut across four untreated substrates (brewers' spent grain, kitchen food waste, poultry manure, and rabbit manure) using 16S and ITS2 amplicon sequencing. Results demonstrated that substrate impacted larval weight gain from 30 to 100% gain differences among diets and induced an important microbial shift in the gut of BSF larvae: fungal communities were highly substrate dependent with Pichia being the only prevalent genus across 96% of the samples; bacterial communities also varied across diets; nonetheless, we observed six conserved bacterial members in 99.9% of our samples, namely, Dysgonomonas, Morganella, Enterococcus, Pseudomonas, Actinomyces, and Providencia. Among these, Enterococcus was highly correlated with other genera including Morganella and Providencia. Additionally, we showed that diets such as rabbit manure induced a dysbiosis with higher loads of the pathogenic bacteria Campylobacter. Together, this study provides the first comprehensive analysis of bacterial and fungal communities of BSF gut across untreated substrates and highlights conserved members, potential pathogens, and their interactions. This information will contribute to the establishment of safety measures for future processing of BSF larval meals and the creation of legislation to regulate their use in animal feeds.

Automated summary

The study characterized the bacterial and fungal communities in the black soldier fly larval gut across different untreated substrates, finding that substrate type impacted larval weight gain and induced microbial shifts; diets like rabbit manure led to dysbiosis with increased pathogenic bacteria.