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ABSTRACT Within social insect colonies, microbiomes often differ between castes due to their different functional roles and between colony locations. Trachymyrmex septentrionalis fungus-growing ants form colonies throughout the eastern United States and northern Mexico that include workers, female and male alates (unmated reproductive castes), larvae, and pupae. How T. septentrionalis microbiomes vary across this geographic range and between castes is unknown. Our sampling of individual ants from colonies across the eastern United States revealed a conserved T. septentrionalis worker ant microbiome and revealed that worker ant microbiomes are more conserved within colonies than between them. A deeper sampling of individual ants from two colonies that included all available castes (pupae, larvae, workers, and female and male alates), from both before and after adaptation to controlled laboratory conditions, revealed that ant microbiomes from each colony, caste, and rearing condition were typically conserved within but not between each sampling category. Tenericute bacterial symbionts were especially abundant in these ant microbiomes and varied widely in abundance between sampling categories. This study demonstrates how individual insect colonies primarily drive the composition of their microbiomes and shows that these microbiomes are further modified by developmental differences between insect castes and the different environmental conditions experienced by each colony. IMPORTANCE This study investigates microbiome assembly in the fungus-growing ant Trachymyrmex septentrionalis , showing how colony, caste, and lab adaptation influence the microbiome and revealing unique patterns of mollicute symbiont abundance. We find that ant microbiomes differ strongly between colonies but less so within colonies. Microbiomes of different castes and following lab adaptation also differ in a colony-specific manner. This study advances our understanding of the nature of individuality in social insect microbiomes and cautions against the common practice of only sampling a limited number of populations to understand microbiome diversity and function. 

The computer science (CS) for All movement has brought increasing opportunities in middle and high school, and there is a growing body of research on how to increase students' interest and knowledge. But little attention is paid to the structural factors that support or undermine student persistence in CS during the transition to college, which is where the most vulnerable students leave the pathway [1], [2]. In this paper we will describe how our researcher-practitioner partnership (RPP) has built a cross-sector collaboration to align structures and supports across a local school district, community college, and Latinx youth-serving non-profit organization. This work is guided by the following research question: What factors help or hinder cross-sector collaborations from building structural supports for students to persist in Computer Information Systems (CIS)? Data include interviews of teachers and counselors, and notes from monthly RPP meetings including key stakeholders and designers of the pathway. Data analysis was guided by the absorptive capacity framework, which describes readiness to “value new information, assimilate it, and apply it in novel ways as part of organizational routines, policies and practice” [3]. The findings highlight key strategies that others can use to foster cross-sector partnerships that build sustainable, structural supports for student persistence in CS, including having a broker help translate organizational tensions and identify points of opportunities to create authentic engagement opportunities. 

ABSTRACT Spiroplasma platyhelix is a helical bacterium belonging to the class Mollicutes . First isolated from a Pachydiplax longipennis dragonfly, it has the smallest reported Spiroplasma genome size of 740 kbp. Here, we report the genome sequence of S. platyhelix ATCC 51748. 

Rangeomorphs represent a long-extinct group of eumetazoans with a bodyplan unlike anything alive today.