Insects are one of the most successful and diverse groups of organisms. Most of natural and agricultural systems depend on or are heavily influenced by insects. However, this success needs to be shared with another group of organisms: bacteria. We have been known for decades that bacteria are essential associates for their host, and more recently we became aware that the insect-associated communities of bacteria – as a whole – can influence insects’ lifestyle. More recently, we assisted to an exponential growth of studies describing the composition of bacterial communities across insects’ phylogeny. However, there is still an outstanding question that urges to be answered: which factors contribute most in shaping insects’ microbiomes? This study tries to find an answer to this question by taking advantage of publicly available sequencing data and re-analyzing over 7,000 samples of insect-associated bacterial communities under a common framework.
