bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/065326; this version posted July 22, 2016. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 1 Privatization of a breeding resource by the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides is 2 associated with shifts in bacterial communities 3 4 Ana Duarte1, Martin Welch2, Josef Wagner3 and Rebecca M. Kilner1 5 1Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK 6 2Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 1QW, UK 7 3Pathogen Genetics Programme, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, CB10 1SA, UK 8 9 Corresponding author: 10 Ana Duarte 11 Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK 12 Phone: +44 (0) 1223 334466 13 Fax: +44 (0) 1223 336676 14 E-mail:
[email protected] bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/065326; this version posted July 22, 2016. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 15 Abstract 16 It is still poorly understood how animal behaviour shapes bacterial communities and their evolution. 17 We use burying beetles, Nicrophorus vespilloides, to investigate how animal behaviour impacts the 18 assembly of bacterial communities. Burying beetles use small vertebrate carcasses as breeding 19 resources, which they roll into a ball, smear with antimicrobial exudates and bury.