Extensive variation in intracellular symbiont community composition among members of a single population of the wood-boring bivalve Lyrodus pedicellatus (Bivalvia: Teredinidae).

ABSTRACT: Shipworms (wood-boring bivalves of the family Teredinidae) harbor in their gills intracellular bacterial symbionts thought to produce enzymes that enable the host to consume cellulose as its primary carbon source. Recently, it was demonstrated that multiple genetically distinct symbiont populations coexist within one shipworm species, Lyrodus pedicellatus. Here we explore the extent to which symbiont communities vary among individuals of this species by quantitatively examining the diversity, abundance, and pattern of occurrence of symbiont ribotypes (unique 16S rRNA sequence types) among specimens drawn from a single laboratory-reared population. A total of 18 ribotypes were identified in two clone libraries generated from gill tissue of (i) a single specimen and (ii) four pooled specimen

SUBMITTER: Luyten YA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1352252 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature