DOI: 10.5061/dryad.2k4m170
title: Data from: Diplogastrellus nematodes are sexually transmitted mutualists that alter the bacterial and fungal communities of their beetle host

description: A recent accumulation of studies has demonstrated that nongenetic,
 maternally transmitted factors are often critical to the health and
 development of offspring and can therefore play a role in ecological and
 evolutionary processes. In particular, microorganisms such as bacteria
 have been championed as heritable, symbiotic partners capable of
 conferring fitness benefits to their hosts. At the same time, parents may
 also pass various nonmicrobial organisms to their offspring, yet the roles
 of such organisms in shaping the developmental environment of their hosts
 remain largely unexplored. Here, we show that the nematode Diplogastrellus
 monhysteroides is transgenerationally inherited and sexually transmitted
 by the dung beetle Onthophagus taurus. By manipulating artificial chambers
 in which beetle offspring develop, we demonstrate that the presence of D.
 monhysteroides nematodes enhances the growth of beetle offspring,
 empirically challenging the paradigm that nematodes are merely commensal
 or even detrimental to their insect hosts. Finally, our research presents
 a compelling mechanism whereby the nematodes influence the health of
 beetle larvae: D. monhysteroides nematodes engineer the bacterial and
 fungal communities that also inhabit the beetle developmental chambers,
 including specific taxa known to be involved in biomass degradation,
 possibly allowing larval beetles better access to their otherwise
 recalcitrant, plant-based diet. Thus, our findings illustrate that
 nongenetic inheritance can include intermediately sized organisms that
 live and proliferate in close association with, and in certain cases
 enhance, the development of their hosts’ offspring.
description: 16S-raw-.001-abundance.representative.sequencesThis fasta file includes 16S sequence data from different environmental samples. Within QIIME2, DADA2 was used to remove primer sequences from the reads, perform error correction, identify sequence variants, and remove chimeric sequences. Sequence variants were then classified by a naive Bayes classifier within QIIME2 using release of 128 of the Silva SSU database. An abundance filter was applied, and sequence variants that did not compose at least 0.1% of at least one library were removed from all libraries. The fasta file includes all variants that passed the abundance filter.ITS-dna-sequencesFollowing ITS sequencing, reads were demultiplexed using the 2017.10 release of QIIME2 requiring a barcode match. Because the forward and reverse reads do not overlap for this amplicon, DADA2 was used to trim forward and reverse reads to 200 and 100bp respectively. Cutadapt was used to trim primer sequences from the sequence variants identified by DADA2. Sequences that did not contain these primer sequences were discarded. VSEARCH was used to perform de novo chimera detection and removal. The remaining ITS sequence variants were clustered into operational taxonomic units (OTUs) at 97% similarity using Abundant OTU+. The software package ITSx was then used to filter non-ITS and non-fungal OTUs from our data set.