Parallel and non-parallel changes of the gut microbiota during trophic diversification in repeated young adaptive radiat
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RESEARCH
Open Access
Parallel and non-parallel changes of the gut microbiota during trophic diversification in repeated young adaptive radiations of sympatric cichlid fish Andreas Härer1,2, Julián Torres-Dowdall1, Sina J. Rometsch1, Elizabeth Yohannes1, Gonzalo Machado-Schiaffino1,3 and Axel Meyer1*
Abstract Background: Recent increases in understanding the ecological and evolutionary roles of microbial communities have underscored the importance of their hosts’ biology. Yet, little is known about gut microbiota dynamics during the early stages of ecological diversification and speciation. We sequenced the V4 region of the 16s rRNA gene to study the gut microbiota of Nicaraguan Midas cichlid fish (Amphilophus cf. citrinellus). Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that parallel divergence in trophic ecology in extremely young adaptive radiations from two crater lakes is associated with parallel changes of their gut microbiota. Results: Bacterial communities of fish guts and lake water were highly distinct, indicating that the gut microbiota is shaped by host-specific factors. Among individuals of the same crater lake, differentiation in trophic ecology was weakly associated with gut microbiota differentiation, suggesting that diet, to some extent, affects the gut microbiota. However, differences in trophic ecology were much more pronounced across than within species whereas similar patterns were not observed for taxonomic and functional differences of the gut microbiota. Across the two crater lakes, we could not detect conclusive evidence for parallel changes of the gut microbiota associated with trophic ecology. Conclusions: A lack of clearly differentiated niches during the early stages of ecological diversification might result in non-parallel changes of gut microbial communities, as observed in our study system as well as in other recently diverged fish species. Keywords: Amphilophus citrinellus, Trophic ecology, Stable isotopes, Neotropical cichlids, Rapid adaptation, 16S rRNA gene sequencing, Parallel evolution, Nicaragua
* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstrasse 10, 78457 Konstanz, Germany Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
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