Entomopathogenic fungus treatment changes the gut bacterial diversity of Rhipicephalus microplus ticks

Parasites & Vectors

Table 1 Network metrics of the bacterial communities in the gut of ticks and in the pure blood of calves

Parameters	ctrl	T	F	T+F	B
Number of nodes^a	83	106	97	74	38
Number of edges^b	1446	3251	2185	1247	140
Positive edges^c	68.19	54.57	67.19	44.03	48.57
Negative edges^d	31.81	45.43	32.81	55.97	51.43
Connected components^e	1	1	1	1	1
Network diameter^f	2	3	2	2	4
Graph density^g	0.425	0.584	0.469	0.462	0.199
Modularity^h	0.450	0.192	0.377	0.225	0.248
Average degreeⁱ	34.843	61.34	45.052	33.703	7.368
Avg. clustering coefficient^j	0.875	0.866	0.875	0.590	0.340
Avg. path length^k	1.575	1.422	1.531	1.538	2.104
Maximum degree^l	81	104	93	44	15

^aNumber of unique ASVs present on the network
^bNo. of significant correlations between ASVs (weight ≥ 0.7 and P-value < 0.05)
^cPercentage of positive correlations
^dPercentage of negative correlations
^eNo. of separate components in the network
^fShortest distance between the two most distant nodes in the network
^gMeasure of how many ties between ASVs exist compared with how many ties between ASVs are possible
^hMeasures the strength of division of a network into clusters or communities
ⁱAverage no. of edges per node
^jMeasures the weighted degree to which nodes in a graph tend to cluster together
^kAverage no. of steps along the shortest paths for all possible pairs of nodes
^lMaximum number of connections (edges) observed
Treatments: B—pure blood sample from the calf; ctrl—ticks artificially fed with pure blood; T—ticks artificially fed with blood plus Tetracycline; F—ticks artificially fed with pure blood and treated with Metarhizium anisopliae; T+F—combined use of tetracycline and M. anisopliae treatment

ISSN: 1756-3305