Environmental and microhabitat influences on microbiota of snow-active Collembola in sub-zero temperatures

Animal-associated microbiotas provide essential services to their host and they have been extensively studied during the snow free periods; however, the microbiotas of soil animals in harsh environments, particularly Collembola, a key group of soil microarthropods tolerating sub-zero temperatures and remaining active in snow-covered regions, are not well understood yet. In this study, we investigated the gut microbiota of the Collembola species Desoria ruseki, which is widely distributed in Northeast China, using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing from different sites. Our findings revealed that the potential symbiotic microbiota and food microbiota of Collembola did not exhibit a distance-decay pattern, in contrast to the microbial communities found in snow and litter. The microbial communities associated with snow-active Collembola populations differed significantly among sites with snow being more influential than litter in shaping microbial communities. Total carbon, total nitrogen, ammonium nitrogen and nitrate nitrogen in snow were key factors influencing the food microbiota of Collembola, while total carbon in litter significantly affected their potential symbiotic microbiota. Collembola-associated bacteria, such as Lautropia, Streptomyces, Mycobacterium, Marmoricola, and Fridmanniella responded to changes in physicochemical properties. Our results suggest that different microbial groups associated with snow-active Collembola show distinct driving patterns by microhabitat conditions. The findings of this study can improve our understanding of the gut microbiota assembly of soil arthropods active in snowy regions.