Morphological complexity affects the diversity of marine microbiomes.

ABSTRACT: Large eukaryotes support diverse communities of microbes on their surface-epibiota-that profoundly influence their biology. Alternate factors known to structure complex patterns of microbial diversity-host evolutionary history and ecology, environmental conditions and stochasticity-do not act independently and it is challenging to disentangle their relative effects. Here, we surveyed the epibiota from 38 sympatric seaweed species that span diverse clades and have convergent morphology, which strongly influences seaweed ecology. Host identity explains most of the variation in epibiont communities and deeper host phylogenetic relationships (e.g., genus level) explain a small but significant portion of epibiont community variation. Strikingly, epibiota community composition is significantly i

SUBMITTER: Lemay MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8115056 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature