Affiliation:
1. Department of Biology, Royal Museum for Central Africa , 3080 Tervuren , Belgium
2. Laboratory of Aquatic Biology, KU Leuven, Campus Kortrijk , 8500 Kortrijk , Belgium
Abstract
Abstract
Microbial symbionts can affect host phenotypes and, thereby, ecosystem functioning. The microbiome is increasingly being recognized as an important player in the tripartite interaction between parasitic flatworms, snail intermediate hosts, and the snail microbiome. In order to better understand these interactions, transplant experiments are needed, which rely on the development of a reliable and reproducible protocol to obtain microbiome-disturbed snails. Here, we report on the first successful snail bacteriome transplants, which indicate that Biomphalaria glabrata can accrue novel bacterial assemblies depending on the available environmental bacteria obtained from donor snails. Moreover, the phylogenetic relatedness of the donor host significantly affected recipients’ survival probability, corroborating the phylosymbiosis pattern in freshwater snails. The transplant technique described here, complemented by field-based studies, could facilitate future research endeavors to investigate the role of specific bacteria or bacterial communities in parasitic flatworm resistance of B. glabrata and might ultimately pave the way for microbiome-mediated control of snail-borne diseases.
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Subject
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology,Ecology,Microbiology
Cited by
2 articles.
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