The gut bacterial community of the red palm weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier, Coleoptera, Curculionidae) larvae

The red palm weevil (RPW), Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier, Coleoptera, Curculionidae) is the major pest of palm trees in the Mediterranean area. Damages are caused mainly by the endophytophagous larvae that consume the palm tender soft tissues making galleries and producing a wet “frass” with a characteristic fermented odour. The culturable bacterial community associated to the frass produced by RPW larvae inside Phoenix canariensis trees is mainly composed of facultative anaerobe gamma-proteobacteria that have their closest phylogenetic relatives in the gut microbiome of other endophytophagous and xilophagous coleopteran as bark beetles and other plant biomass-degrading insects (leaf-c…