Abstract
In aquatic animals, gut microbial communities shift with host development and living environments. Understanding the mechanism by which the environment impacts the gut microbial communities of aquatic animals is crucial for assessing and managing aquatic ecosystem health. Here, we proposed a simplified framework for the colonization and dynamics of gut microbial communities. Then, to quantify the colonization of environmental microbes in the wild fish gut, the current study used 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to obtain the structure of the water environmental microbial community and the gut microbial community in 10 wild fish populations (Leiocassis crassilabris, Leiocassis longirostris, Pelteobagrus vachelli, Silurus asotus, Siniperca chuatsi, Coilia brachygnathus, Aristichthys nobilis, Hypophthalmichthys molitrix, Coreius heterodon, and Xenocypris argentea) from the Wuhan section of the Yangtze River, and the relationship of these microbial communities was analyzed. The results identified that in most individuals, approximately 80% of gut microbes [at the operational taxonomic unit (OTU) level] were shared with the water environmental microbial community (except for individuals of Siniperca chuatsi and Coilia brachygnathus, approximately 74%). In approximately 80% of individuals, more than 95% of microbial species (OTUs) in the gut were transient. For fish species, more than 99% of microbial species (OTUs) that were introduced into the gut were transient. Nearly 79% of OTUs and 89% of species of water environmental microbes could be introduced into the fish gut. Driven by the introduction of transient microbes, fishes with similar feeding habits had similar gut microbial communities. The results indicated that for adult wild fishes, most gut microbiota were transient from the environmental microbiota that were related to fish feeding habits. We therefore encourage future research to focus on environmental microbiota monitoring and management to promote the better conservation of aquatic animals. It was important to note that, because of various influence factors, interspecific differences and individual variations on gut microbial community characteristics, the quantification of gut microbes in the current work was approximate rather than accurate. We hope that more comparable research could be conducted to outline the quantitative characteristics of the relationship between gut microbial community and aquatic environment microbial community as soon as possible.
Highlights
Gut microbial communities of fish shift with host development and living environments (Yan et al, 2016; Lokesh et al, 2018; Derome and Filteau, 2020)
A total of 15,640 operational taxonomic unit (OTU) were detected among these sequences, which belonged to 3 kingdoms, 67 phyla, 198 classes, 500 orders, 860 families, 1977 genera and 4393 species
The results showed that in most individuals, approximately 80% of gut microbial OTUs were shared with the water environmental microbial community, and more than 95% of microbe species (OTUs) in the gut were transient
Summary
Gut microbial communities of fish shift with host development and living environments (Yan et al, 2016; Lokesh et al, 2018; Derome and Filteau, 2020). The gut microbiota is influenced mainly by the introduction of environmental microbes with water and diet; as the immune system and nutrition metabolism develop, gut microbes are selected and enriched gradually (Yan et al, 2016; Li et al, 2017; Lokesh et al, 2018; Zhang et al, 2018; Wilkes Walburn et al, 2019; Yang et al, 2020). Xenocypris argentea, compared with the community richness of gut microbiota, there was a relatively low proportion of water environmental microbes introduced into the fish gut (Figure 4). The community heatmap analysis showed that two pelagic piscivorous fishes were clustered as a group, four more-or-lessplants-feeding fishes were clustered as a group, and four bottom predators were clustered as a group (Figure 6) These results verified that the gut microbes of these wild fishes relied mainly on feeding habits
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