Transient influence of blood meal and natural environment on blacklegged tick bacterial communities

Blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) spend the majority of their life cycle off host, typically in woodland habitat, but require a blood meal at each of three life stages (larva, nymph, adult) to reach maturity and reproduce. Blood feeding usually lasts for several days each time and as blood is imbibed, a range of known pathogens from the host may also be acquired. Using next generation sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons, we examined the influence of host blood meal on the internal bacterial community within nymphal blacklegged ticks across host-seeking, feeding, blood meal digestion, and after molting into the adult stage. Results demonstrate bacterial community structuring across host and ticks with 287 taxa found exclusively in ticks, suggesting the field environment plays a significant role in shaping the internal tick microbiome. A decrease in bacterial diversity was noted from unfed nymphs through feeding/digestion and after molting into adults, suggesting that bacterial species are lost during the corresponding physiological changes. The similarity in biochemical pathways across the different tick categories suggests that the loss of bacterial taxa does not mirror a large change in microbial function. Ticks likely lose bacterial taxa after feeding, but continual exposure to bacteria from the field environment counters this loss.