engleski

Microbiome of the successful freshwater invader, the signal crayfish, and its changes along the invasion range

Invasive species are among the major drivers of biodiversity loss and impairment of ecosystem services worldwide, but our understanding of their invasion success and dynamics still has many gaps. For instance, although it is known that host-associated microbial communities may significantly affect an individual’s health and fitness, the current studies on invasive species are mainly focused on pathogenic microbes. In contrast, the effects of the remaining majority of microbial communities on the invasion process are almost completely unexplored. We have analyzed the microbiome of one of the most successful crayfish invaders in Europe, the signal crayfish in the Korana River, Croatia. Using a 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing approach, we analyzed the microbiomes of different crayfish tissues (exoskeleton, hemolymph, hepatopancreas, and intestine) and explored their changes along the invasion range. Exoskeletal, hepatopancreatic, and intestinal microbiomes varied between invasion core and invasion front populations, indicating that they may be partly determined by population density, which was higher in the invasion core than in the invasion front. The highly diverse microbiome of exoskeletal biofilm was partly shaped by the environment (due to the similarity with the sediment microbiome) and partly by intrinsic crayfish parameters (due to the high proportion of exoskeleton-unique amplicon sequence variants [ASVs]). Our findings offer an insight into microbiome changes during dispersal of a successful invader and present a baseline for assessment of their contribution to an invader’s overall health and its further invasion success.

Pacifastacus leniusculus ; 16S rRNA gene ; range expansion

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