Our very long and laborious project to understand processes and drivers of the flour beetle microbiome has finally come to an end! Through a huge team effort by many members of the lab over several years, we figured out why, and how much, the flour beetle microbiome varies. In brief, we found that the microbiome composition is dominated by ecological drift, partly due to life stage-specific colonization by bacteria and a peculiar host life history, combined with protocols necessary to maintain healthy beetle populations in the laboratory. Our results raise new questions about how host-associated microbial communities are assembled, maintained, and evolve in nature. Read the paper to find all the rich details of this story, and this short article explaining the work!
