Click
here to close Hello! We notice that
you are using Internet Explorer, which is not supported by Echinobase
and may cause the site to display incorrectly. We suggest using a
current version of Chrome,
FireFox,
or Safari.
PeerJ
2024 Nov 28;12:e18298. doi: 10.7717/peerj.18298.
Show Gene links
Show Anatomy links
Effects of temperature and size class on the gut digesta microbiota of the sea urchin Tripneustes ventricosus.
Rodríguez-Barreras R
,
Tosado-Rodríguez EL
,
Dominicci-Maura A
,
Godoy-Vitorino F
.
???displayArticle.abstract???
BACKGROUND: Understanding the dynamics of the gut microbiota in sea urchins is crucial for comprehending the ecological balance in marine ecosystems. The gut microbiota plays a vital role in nutrient metabolism, immune system modulation, and pathogen protection. The microbial composition and dynamics of naturally occurring sea urchin Tripneustes ventricosus have yet to be thoroughly investigated. We hypothesized the gut microbiota of T. ventricosus in the Caribbean, varies across life stages and seasons.
METHODS: Thirty-six naturally occurring large individuals and six small individuals (42 animals) were collected from shallow waters on the northeastern coast of Puerto Rico in February and August of 2019. The fecal pellet's microbiota was characterized by sequencing V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene.
RESULTS: We found significant differences in the composition of fecal pellet microbiota between seasons and life stages. Phylum Bacteroidota had greater relative abundance in August, while Firmicutes was more dominant in February. Propionigenium and Roseimarinus had greater relative abundance in August, while Candidatus Hepatoplasma, and Kistimonas had greater relative abundance in February. Differences in the gut digest microbiota were not found between small and large urchins, but small urchins displayed a slightly higher diversity and dominance of Bacteroidota and Proteobacteria, while large urchins exhibited a greater relative abundance of Fusobacteria and Desulfobacterota. However, the genera Ferrominas and Propionigenium counts were significantly lower in small individuals.
DISCUSSION: This is the first report for this species in the Caribbean region and adds to our comprehension of the microbiota of the white sea urchin across collection periods and size classes, highlighting the dynamic nature of the gut microbiota.
Figure 1. Temporal bacterial taxonomic distribution in the sea urchin Tripneustes ventricosus (February n = 18; August n = 17).Taxonomic plots show the average relative abundance at Phyla (A) and genus (B) levels, depicting relative abundances.
Figure 2. Temporal beta and alpha diversity analyses of the sea urchin Tripneustes ventricosusgut microbiota (February n = 18; August n = 17).Beta diversity is represented in a 3D PCA biplot as a principal component analysis. Arrows corresponding to the specific feature (taxonomically characterized) and responsible for group clustering are colored. The arrows respond to Euclidian distance from the origin, and their size indicates the strength of the relationship of that ASV to the community composition and grouping (A). Alpha diversity estimates are visualized by Shannon diversity boxplots (B) and rarefaction curves for observed features (C) and Faith’s phylogenetic index (D).
Figure 3. Volcano plot based on MaAsLin2 analysis comparing taxa between February and August in the sea urchin Tripneustes ventricosus.In the plot, red dots represent bacterial genera significantly had greater relative abundance (FC ≥ |1.5| and p ≤ 0.05) in winter than in summer. Conversely, blue dots indicate significantly reduced genera (FC ≥ |1.5| and p ≤ 0.05) in winter compared to summer. Grey dots represent non-significant features. The plot’s X-axis represents the fold change between the two seasonal groups on a log2 scale. At the same time, the Y-axis displays the negative log10 of the p-values resulting from the statistical test conducted for the comparison.
Figure 4. Bacterial taxonomic distribution according to size classification in the sea urchin Tripneustes ventricosus.Taxonomic plots show the average relative abundance at Phyla (A) and genus (B) levels computed for n = 6 small and n = 35 large animals.
Figure 5. Boxplots of the two significantly increased genus-level plots for small and large sea urchins.These plots correspond to LEfse analysis (p ≤ 0.05) and include n = 6 small and n = 35 large animals (A and B, respectively).
Figure 6. Beta and alpha diversity analyses of the gut microbiota in the sea urchin Tripneustes ventricosus according to size classification (small n = 6; large n = 35).Beta diversity is represented in a 3D PCA biplot as a principal component analysis. Arrows corresponding to the specific feature (taxonomically characterized) and responsible for group clustering are colored. The arrows respond to Euclidian distance from the origin, and their size indicates the strength of the relationship of that ASV to the community composition and grouping (A). Alpha diversity estimatesare visualized by Shannon diversity boxplots (B) and rarefaction curves for observed features (C) and Faith’s phylogenetic index (D).
