Study on the Relationship Between Diet, Physical Health and Gut Microflora of Chinese College Students.

Many elements of a modern lifestyle influence the gut microbiota but few studies have explored the effect of physical health level. This study was aimed to explore the relationship between diet, physical health and gut microbiota in Chinese college students. A total of 69 college students were recruited, including 27 college athletes (AS group) and 42 healthy controls (HC group). Fecal samples were collected for 16S rRNA sequencing. According to National Standards for Students' Physical Health (2014 revision), physical fitness measurements, dietary intake and health-related data were collected via questionnaires. ①According to the physical fitness scores, the physical fitness level of AS group was significantly higher than that of HC group (P < 0.05), there were no significant differences between the two groups in the frequency of intake of food. The frequency and duration of physical activity in the AS group were higher than those in the HC group (P < 0.05); ②The proportion and relative abundances of microorganism composition is varying at two groups: on the phylum level, AS group had mainly increased Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and reduced Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria; on the genus level, AS group had mainly increased Faecalibacterium, Bifidobacterium and reduced Bacteroides; ③The associations with the 10 most abundant bacterial genera and physical fitness, dietary factors were investigated. Changes in the gut microbiota abundance can be sometimes reflective of a physical health status. Loss of the balance of gut microbial populations will lead to flora disorders and diseases. Therefore, further studies are needed to reveal the mechanisms behind the gut microbiota in its potential role.

Comparative mitochondrial genome analysis of Dendrolimus houi (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae) and phylogenetic relationship among Lasiocampidae species.

Dendrolimus houi is one of the most common caterpillars infesting Gymnosperm trees, and widely distributed in several countries in Southeast Asia, and exists soley or coexists with several congeners and some Lasiocampidae species in various forest habitats. However, natural hybrids occasionally occur among some closely related species in the same habitat, and host preference, extreme climate stress, and geographic isolation probably lead to their uncertain taxonomic consensus. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of D. houi was extracted and sequenced by using high-throughput technology, and the mitogenome composition and characteristics were compared and analyzed of these species, then the phylogenetic relationship was constructed using the maximum likelihood method (ML) and the Bayesian method (BI) based on their 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs) dataset, which were combined and made available to download which were combined and made available to download among global Lasiocampidae species data. Mitogenome of D. houi was 15,373 bp in length, with 37 genes, including 13 PCGs, 22 tRNA genes (tRNAs) and 2 rRNA genes (rRNAs). The positions and sequences of genes were consistent with those of most known Lasiocampidae species. The nucleotide composition was highly A+T biased, accounting for ~80% of the whole mitogenome. All start codons of PCGs belonged to typical start codons ATN except for COI which used CGA, and most stop codons ended with standard TAA or TAG, while COI, COII, ND4 ended with incomplete T. Only tRNASer (AGN) lacked DHU arm, while the remainder formed a typical "clover-shaped" secondary structure. For Lasiocampidae species, their complete mitochondrial genomes ranged from 15,281 to 15,570 bp in length, and all first genes started from trnM in the same direction. And base composition was biased toward A and T. Finally, both two methods (ML and BI) separately revealed that the same phylogenetic relationship of D. spp. as ((((D. punctatus + D. tabulaeformis) + D. spectabilis) + D. superans) + (D. kikuchii of Hunan population + D. houi) as in previous research, but results were different in that D. kikuchii from a Yunnan population was included, indicating that different geographical populations of insects have differentiated. And the phylogenetic relationship among Lasiocampidae species was ((((Dendrolimus) + Kunugia) + Euthrix) + Trabala). This provides a better theoretical basis for Lasiocampidae evolution and classification for future research directions.

A new species of Glyptapanteles Ashmead (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) within Macrobrochis gigas (Lepidoptera, Arctiidae, Lithosiidae) in Fujian, China.

The south-east coastal area of Fujian, China, belongs to the Oriental Realm, and is characterized by a high insect species richness. In this work, a new species of Hymenopteran parasitoid, Glyptapanteles gigas Liang & Song, sp. nov. found in Jinjiang within hosts of caterpillars Macrobrochis gigas (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae), is described and illustrated, with differences from similar species. Additionally, we presumed that both parasitoid and host species play very important role in the coevolution and tritrophic interaction between plants, phytophagous insects, and their parasitoids, because these insects probably broke the sporangia and made contributions to their colonization, or some spores were spread for long distances by adult moths after their emergence, or some parasitoids were attracted by the eggs and larvae of these caterpillars, which was also thought to be helpful to spread of spores.