Morphological and Biochemical Characterization of Bacteria Associated with the Developmental Stage of the Peach Fruit Fly, Bactrocera zonata (Diptera: Tephritidae)

Abstract

Bacterial-insects associations are very common, can be parasitic to mutualistic and reside in the gut, hemocoel and body cells of insects, which play an important role in their nutrition, digestion and development. The aim of present study was to morphological and biochemical characterization of the bacteria isolated from the different developmental stages of the peach fruit fly, Bactrocera zonata. The total 35 bacterial colonies on the basis of colony morphology were screened belongs to various genera different family, including rods of both gram-positive as well as gram-negative and only few gram positive coccus and rod-coccus. Out of total bacterial isolates, thirteen different bacterial species belonging to eleven genera (seven families) were identified from the developmental stage (first Instar larvae, third Instar larvae, pupa, male and female adults) of Bactrocera zonata. The bacteria species viz., Klebsiella pneumonia, Klebsiella oxytoca, Enterobacter cloacae, Enterobacter sp., Providencia sp., Pantoea sp., Citrobacter freundii, Pseudomonas sp., Enterococcus sp., Ochrobactrum sp., Bacillus sp., Microbacterium sp., and Rhodococcus sp. were identified to be associated with different life stages. Genera Klebsiella, Enterobacter and Pseudomonas of family, Enterobacteriaceae were found in all the development stages. Therefore, the present study significantly supplements to the available information on the cultivable bacterial diversity associated with the developmental stages of B. zonata.