Microbial community changes correlate with impaired host fitness of Aurelia aurita after environmental challenge.

ABSTRACT: Climate change globally endangers certain marine species, but at the same time, such changes may promote species that can tolerate and adapt to varying environmental conditions. Such acclimatization can be accompanied or possibly even be enabled by a host's microbiome; however, few studies have so far directly addressed this process. Here we show that acute, individual rises in seawater temperature and salinity to sub-lethal levels diminished host fitness of the benthic Aurelia aurita polyp, demonstrated by up to 34% reduced survival rate, shrinking of the animals, and almost halted asexual reproduction. Changes in the fitness of the polyps to environmental stressors coincided with microbiome changes, mainly within the phyla Proteobacteria and Bacteroidota. The absence of bacteria amplifie

SUBMITTER: Pinnow N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10515101 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature