The Native Microbial Community of Gastropod-Associated Species Across Central and Southern California.

Nematodes in the genus can infect and kill slugs and snails, which are important agricultural pests. This useful trait has been commercialized by the corporation BASF after they mass produced a product labeled Nemaslug®. The product contains , which has been cultured with , a bacterial strain that was originally thought to be responsible for causing mortality in slugs and snails. The exact mechanism leading to death in a infected host is unknown but may involve contributions from nematode-associated bacteria. The naturally occurring microbial community of is unexplored; the previous microbial community studies have focused on laboratory grown or commercially reared nematodes, and in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the parasite and its host interactions, it is crucial to characterize the natural microbial communities associated with this organism in the wild. We sampled , , and directly from their habitats in Central and Southern California nurseries and garden centers and identified their native microbial community 16S amplicon sequencing. We found that the microbial community was influenced by species, location, and possibly gastropod host from which the nematode was collected. The predominant bacteria of the isolates collected included , , Aeromonadaceae, Pseudomonadaceae, and . isolates exhibited an enrichment with species belonging to Acinetobacter or Pseudomonadaceae. However, further research must be performed to determine if this is due to the location of isolate collection or a species specific microbial community pattern. More work on the natural microbial community of is needed to determine the role of bacteria in nematode virulence.