Association of gut microflora

Studies were carried out to isolate and characterize gut microflora of silkworm pure races and cross breeds. Enumeration of gut microflora revealed that guts of CSR 2 harboured significantly higher microflora population with bacteria being dominant (2.84 x 107cfu/ml) followed by fungi (1.66 x 104cfu/ml) and actinomycetes (4.3 x 102cfu/ml). Among nine cross breeds evaluated PM X CSR 2 recorded significantly higher gut microbiota and three crossbreeds viz., BL43 x NB4D2, APM1 x APS8 and APM2 x MVT recording significantly lower gut fungi. Regarding actinomycetes, PM X CSR 2 recorded significantly higher population of 2.3 x 102cfu/ml than all other cross breeds evaluated. The composition of gut microflora in silkworm gut that, 80 % of the total population was bacteria with rod (59%) coccus (15%) and coli forms (6%).