Figure 1.

Study design timeline. Diagrammatic drawing representation of the initial and second experiments performed in this study. In initial experiment: (a) Un‐irradiated male flies + conventional diet and PBS. (b) Irradiated male flies + conventional diet and PBS. In second experiment: (c) Un‐irradiated males + conventional diet and PBS. (d) Irradiated males + conventional diet and germfree PBS. (e) Irradiated males + conventional diet and candidate‐bacteria enriched PBS. (f) Irradiated males + conventional diet and heat‐killing candidate‐bacteria enriched PBS. (c–f) After an experimental diet of 6 days, the dietary of all groups was replaced with the conventional diet and germfree PBS. Briefly, 15 flies per sample were used for total DNA extraction from the intestines. With a total of six samples at each time point, there were 90 flies used. So, at 1DPE (15guts *6 replicates=90guts), 7DPE (15*6 = 90), 14DPE (15*6 = 90) resulted in a total of 270 guts for irradiated flies, and 270 guts for un‐irradiated flies were used (540 guts in total). Simply, the 36 gut samples included 1DPE (6 samples), 7DPE (6 samples), 14DPE (6 samples) with a total of 18 samples for irradiated flies and in the same way total of 18 samples for un‐irradiated flies