The Adult Aedes aegypti Bacterial Microbiota is Robust to Infection with the Obligate Microsporidian Parasite Edhazardia aedis

ABSTRACT Edhazardia aedis is an obligate intracellular microsporidian parasite of the arthropod vector Aedes aegypti , which is responsible for the spread of several vertebrate pathogens of global health importance. E. aedis can be highly virulent to A. aegypti and infection has severely detrimental effects on multiple A. aegypti life history traits, including longevity, body size, propensity to host‐seek and blood‐feed, and reproductive capacity. Herein, we queried the effect of E. aedis infection on the bacterial microbiota of adult female A. aegypti using high‐throughput amplicon sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. Analysis of sequencing data revealed that the bacterial microbiota community is strikingly robust to E. aedis infection, as we observed no significant effect on alpha or beta diversity, differential abundance of any taxa, predicted metabolic function profile, or bacterial load. The data show that E. aedis , despite dramatically impacting the health and fitness of the adult female mosquito, does not affect the microbiota. These results provide unique insight into tripartite relationships (or lack thereof) between hosts, pathogens, and the microbiota.