Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of Texas, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management, North-West University, Potchefstroom, 2520, South Africa.
Sci Rep. 2022 Sep 6;12(1):15116. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-19064-0.
Our understanding of the importance of microbiomes on large aquatic animals-such as whales, sea turtles and manatees-has advanced considerably in recent years. The latest observations indicate that epibiotic diatom communities constitute diverse, polyphyletic, and compositionally stable assemblages that include both putatively obligate epizoic and generalist species. Here, we outline a successful approach to culture putatively obligate epizoic diatoms without their hosts. That some taxa can be cultured independently from their epizoic habitat raises several questions about the nature of the interaction between these animals and their epibionts. This insight allows us to propose further applications and research avenues in this growing area of study. Analyzing the DNA sequences of these cultured strains, we found that several unique diatom taxa have evolved independently to occupy epibiotic habitats. We created a library of reference sequence data for use in metabarcoding surveys of sea turtle and manatee microbiomes that will further facilitate the use of environmental DNA for studying host specificity in epizoic diatoms and the utility of diatoms as indicators of host ecology and health. We encourage the interdisciplinary community working with marine megafauna to consider including diatom sampling and diatom analysis into their routine practices.
近年来，我们对大型水生动物（如鲸鱼、海龟和海牛）的微生物组的重要性的理解有了很大的进展。最新的观察表明，附生硅藻群落构成了多样的、多系的和组成稳定的集合体，其中包括假定的专性附生和广生态位物种。在这里，我们概述了一种成功的方法，即在没有宿主的情况下培养假定的专性附生硅藻。一些分类群可以独立于其附生栖息地进行培养，这引发了一些关于这些动物与其附生物之间相互作用性质的问题。这一见解使我们能够在这个不断发展的研究领域中提出进一步的应用和研究途径。分析这些培养菌株的 DNA 序列，我们发现了几个独特的硅藻分类群已经独立进化以占据附生栖息地。我们创建了一个参考序列数据库，用于海龟和海牛微生物组的 metabarcoding 调查，这将进一步促进使用环境 DNA 来研究附生硅藻的宿主特异性以及硅藻作为宿主生态和健康指标的实用性。我们鼓励与海洋巨型动物合作的跨学科社区考虑将硅藻采样和硅藻分析纳入其常规实践。
