Research

Publications
Title: Integrated analysis of the digestive tract bacterial community on individual growth in sibling generation of Swamp Eels (Monopterus albus)
First author: Meng, Kaifeng; Lin, Xing; Chen, Yuanyuan; Hu, Meidi; Hu, Wei; Luo, Daji
Journal: AQUACULTURE
Years: 2023
Volume / issue: /
DOI: 10.1016/j.aquaculture.2023.739228
Abstract: Swamp Eels (M. albus) is one of the high-quality freshwater fish with fairly high nutritive value in China. Dis-secting the intrinsic variations of digestive tract microbiota in different sizes of M. albus is beneficial for the development of its yield. Here, we generated the sibling generation of M. albus, screened the large-sized and small-sized individuals, and collected the digestive tract including the mouth and gut for investigating the effect of bacterial communities on individual growth pattern. After 16S rRNA sequencing and diversity analyzing, we found the microbial diversity and richness were significant differences in the mouth, whereas almost no dif-ference in the gut between small and large M. albus. Despite similar bacterial composition, a significant pro-portion difference of bacterial communities was observed between small and large individuals both in mouth and in gut. Specifically, a significant abundance of Burkholderiales were distributed in the small M. albus while Clostridiales had remarkably higher proportions in larger population. In addition, almost all Fusobacteria detected in the gut of large group belonged to the genus Cetobacterium. KEGG analysis further predicted the unique proportions of bacterial communities may be related to individual metabolism such as nucleotide, car-bohydrate, glycan biosynthesis, and lipid metabolism. Interestingly, a potential compensatory relationship of bacterial community may exist between the mouth and gut in M. albus. Taken together, these results provide a novel insight and resources for investigating the underlying relationship between the bacterial microbiota and the growth differences in the farmed population, and provide a theoretical guidance for the exploitation of probiotic products in aquaculture.