Journal
FEMS MICROBIOLOGY ECOLOGY
Volume 98, Issue 10, Pages -Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/femsec/fiac105
Keywords
ecological processes; gut bacterial community; Daphnia magna; reproductive rates; water flea
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Funding
- Department of Biotechnology and Food Science and Department of Biology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
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Stochastic processes impact gut bacterial composition, which alters the reproductive rate of Daphnia magna.
Stochastic processes were shown to impact the composition of the gut bacterial community in Daphnia magna, which altered the organism's reproductive rate. It is well-documented that perturbation of the gut bacterial community can influence the reproductive rates of the host. Less is known about how natural ecological processes can change the bacterial composition in the gut and how such changes influence the reproductive rate of the host. Here, we provide novel experimental insights into such processes using the clonally reproducing water flea, Daphnia magna. A total of 20 replicate cultures were reared for 5 weeks (Phase 1) to allow for divergence of bacterial communities through stochastic processes (i.e. drift, founder effects, and/or colonization). Duplicate cultures created from each of these were reared for 21 days (Phase 2) while recording reproductive rates. There was a significant repeatability in reproductive rates between these duplicates, suggesting that divergence of the bacterial communities during Phase 1 translated into reproductive rate effects during Phase 2. This was further supported by significant differences in the relative abundance of gut bacteria (investigated by amplicon sequencing of a part of the 16S rRNA gene) between cultures with high and low reproductive rate in Phase 2. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that stochastic processes can cause natural variation in the bacterial composition in the gut, which in turn affect host reproductive rates.
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