The interplay between host-specificity and habitat-filtering influences sea cucumber microbiota across an environmental gradient of pollution.

ABSTRACT: Environmental gradients can influence morpho-physiological and life-history differences in natural populations. It is unclear, however, to what extent such gradients can also modulate phenotypic differences in other organismal characteristics such as the structure and function of host-associated microbial communities. In this work, we addressed this question by assessing intra-specific variation in the diversity, structure and function of environmental-associated (sediment and water) and animal-associated (skin and gut) microbiota along an environmental gradient of pollution in one of the most urbanized coastal areas in the world. Using the tropical sea cucumber Holothuria leucospilota, we tested the interplay between deterministic (e.g., environmental/host filtering) and stochastic (e.g.,

SUBMITTER: Chung SS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11479550 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature