Characterization of bacterioplankton communities from a hatchery recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) for juvenile sole (Solea senegalensis) production.

There is a growing consensus that future technological developments of aquaculture systems should account for the structure and function of microbial communities in the whole system and not only in fish guts. In this study, we aimed to investigate the composition of bacterioplankton communities of a hatchery recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) used for the production of Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis) juveniles. To this end, we used a 16S rRNA gene based denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and pyrosequencing analyses to characterize the bacterioplankton communities of the RAS and its water supply. Overall, the most abundant orders were Alteromonadales, Rhodobacterales, Oceanospirillales, Vibrionales, Flavobacteriales, Lactobacillales, Thiotrichales, Burkholderiales and Bdellovibrionales. Although we found a clear distinction between the RAS and the water supply bacterioplankton communities, most of the abundant OTUs (≥50 sequences) in the hatchery RAS were also present in the water supply. These included OTUs related to Pseudoalteromonas genus and the Roseobacter clade, which are known to comprise bacterial members with activity against Vibrio fish pathogens. Overall, in contrast to previous findings for sole grow-out RAS, our results suggest that the water supply may influence the bacterioplankton community structure of sole hatchery RAS. Further studies are needed to investigate the effect of aquaculture practices on RAS bacterioplankton communities and identification of the key drivers of their structure and diversity.