Whole-body bacterial and fungal microbiomes of the soil mite Oppiella nova under six distinct dietary regimes
The oribatid mite Oppiella nova is a widespread soil microarthropod involved in decomposition and nutrient cycling. To investigate dietary effects on its associated microbial communities, we conducted a one-year laboratory microcosm experiment with six gamma-sterilized diets representing three ecological guilds: fungi (Pleurotus ostreatus and Saccharomyces cerevisiae), animal prey (Thalassaphorura houtanensis and Pratylenchus scribneri), and plant litters (Ulmus pumila and Morus alba). After surface sterilization to remove epiphytic microbes, whole-body DNA was extracted from pooled adult individuals (8 mites per replicate, 5 replicates per diet). Amplicon sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA V3-V4 region and fungal ITS1 region was performed on the Illumina platform. This dataset provides insights into how extreme dietary divergence drives the assembly, co-occurrence, and resilience of host-associated microbial communities in a nutritionally plastic soil microarthropod.