Comparative metagenomics of Daphnia symbionts

Qi, Weihong; Nong, Guangmin; Preston, James F.; Ben‐Ami, Frida; Ebert, Dieter

doi:10.1186/1471-2164-10-172

Cited by 85 publications

(100 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…These features provide opportunities for identifying the influences of bacterial symbionts on Daphnia physiology at the molecular level, and these findings can be placed in an ecologically relevant framework. The microbiota of three species of Daphnia have been described, and despite the intercontinental distribution of these species, they harbor diverse but similar bacterial communities, a hint that Daphnia and their microbiota may have established a stable relationship (Qi et al, 2009). At present, the contribution of microbiota to Daphnia health is unknown and the dynamics of the interaction are uncharacterized.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water fleas require microbiota for survival, growth and reproduction

2014

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Microbiota have diverse roles in the functioning of their hosts; experiments using model organisms have enabled investigations into these functions. In the model crustacean Daphnia, little knowledge exists about the effect of microbiota on host well being. We assessed the effect of microbiota on Daphnia magna by experimentally depriving animals of their microbiota and comparing their growth, survival and fecundity to that of their bacteria-bearing counterparts. We tested Daphnia coming from both lab-reared parthenogenetic eggs of a single genotype and from genetically diverse field-collected resting eggs. We showed that bacteria-free hosts are smaller, less fecund and have higher mortality than those with microbiota. We also manipulated the association by exposing bacteria-free Daphnia to a single bacterial strain of Aeromonas sp., and to laboratory environmental bacteria. These experiments further demonstrated that the Daphnia-microbiota system is amenable to manipulation under various experimental conditions. The results of this study have implications for studies of D. magna in ecotoxicology, ecology and environmental genomics.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water fleas require microbiota for survival, growth and reproduction

2014

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“…D. magna is a keystone species in many freshwater habitats and has been widely used as an experimental system to study ecological and evolutionary interactions (for example, Decaestecker et al, 2007;Miner et al, 2012). Daphnia is known to harbor high numbers of bacteria on the surface of its body and in its gut (Grossart et al, 2010;Eckert & Pernthaler, 2014), and Qi et al (2009) showed that several bacterial taxa are consistently found in affiliation with Daphnia, even in geographically separated populations, indicating a highly specific association between Daphnia and its microbiota. Notably, the β-proteobacterial genus Limnohabitans (Comamonadaceae) seems to be a major constituent of the Daphnia microbiota (Freese & Schink, 2011;Eckert & Pernthaler, 2014;.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food availability affects the strength of mutualistic host–microbiota interactions in Daphnia magna

et al. 2015

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The symbiotic gut microbial community is generally known to have a strong impact on the fitness of its host. Nevertheless, it is less clear how the impact of symbiotic interactions on the hosts' fitness varies according to environmental circumstances such as changes in the diet. This study aims to get a better understanding of host-microbiota interactions under different levels of food availability. We conducted experiments with the invertebrate, experimental model organism Daphnia magna and compared growth, survival and reproduction of conventionalized symbiotic Daphnia with germ-free individuals given varying quantities of food. Our experiments revealed that the relative importance of the microbiota for the hosts' fitness varied according to dietary conditions. The presence of the microbiota had strong positive effects on Daphnia when food was sufficient or abundant, but had weaker effects under food limitation. Our results indicate that the microbiota can be a potentially important factor in determining host responses to changes in dietary conditions. Characterization of the host-associated microbiota further showed that Aeromonas sp. was the most prevalent taxon in the digestive tract of Daphnia.

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“…High bacterial diversity, including phylotypes related to Limnohabitans, was also found when analysing prokaryotic sequences from metagenomic data of Daphnia spp. (Qi et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bacterial epibionts of Daphnia: a potential route for the transfer of dissolved organic carbon in freshwater food webs

Eckert

Pernthaler

2014

The ISME Journal

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The identification of interacting species and elucidation of their mode of interaction may be crucial to understand ecosystem-level processes. We analysed the activity and identity of bacterial epibionts in cultures of Daphnia galeata and of natural daphnid populations. Epibiotic bacteria incorporated considerable amounts of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), as estimated via uptake of tritiated leucine: three times more tracer was consumed by microbes on a single Daphnia than in 1 ml of lake water. However, there was virtually no incorporation if daphnids were anaesthetised, suggesting that their filtration activity was essential for this process. Microbial DOC uptake could predominantly be assigned to microbes that were located on the filter combs of daphnids, where the passage of water would ensure a continuously high DOC supply. Most of these bacteria were Betaproteobacteria from the genus Limnohabitans. Specifically, we identified a monophyletic cluster harbouring Limnohabitans planktonicus that encompassed sequence types from D. galeata cultures, from the gut of Daphnia magna and from daphnids of Lake Zurich. Our results suggest that the epibiotic growth of bacteria related to Limnohabitans on Daphnia spp. may be a widespread and rather common phenomenon. Moreover, most of the observed DOC flux to Daphnia in fact does not seem to be associated with the crustacean biomass itself but with its epibiotic microflora. The unexplored physical association of daphnids with heterotrophic bacteria may have considerable implications for our understanding of carbon transfer in freshwater food webs, that is, a trophic 'shortcut' between microbial DOC uptake and predation by fish.

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Comparative metagenomics of Daphnia symbionts

Cited by 85 publications

References 36 publications

Water fleas require microbiota for survival, growth and reproduction

Water fleas require microbiota for survival, growth and reproduction

Food availability affects the strength of mutualistic host–microbiota interactions in Daphnia magna

Bacterial epibionts of Daphnia: a potential route for the transfer of dissolved organic carbon in freshwater food webs

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