Shell Disease Syndrome Is Associated with Reduced and Shifted Epibacterial Diversity on the Carapace of the Crustacean Cancer pagurus

Abstract

In recent years, shell disease syndrome has been detected for several ecologically and economically important crustacean species. Large proportions of populations are affected, e.g., >60% of the widely distributed species Cancer pagurus in different North Sea areas.

Long-read sequencing reveals the shell microbiome of apparently healthy American lobsters Homarus americanus from Atlantic Canada

“…In addition to the aforementioned phyla, Feinmann et al ( 2017) also detected Deferribacteraceae in apparently healthy lab-reared American lobsters, which were not present in our dataset. Bacillota, Fusobacteriota and Mycoplasmatota were less abundant on lobsters in this study, but they are common marine taxa and have been previously recorded on shells of lobsters and brown crabs (Payne et al, 2008;Bell et al, 2012;Meres et al, 2012;Quinn et al, 2013;Bergen et al, 2022). Bell et al (2012) showed that, among others, Bacillota, Fusobacteriota and Mycoplasmatota were over-represented in healthy compared to shelldiseased American lobsters.…”

“…Planctomycetia, which were the least abundant in LFA 25 (both years), are a dominant bacterial class in coastal sediments (Feinmann et al, 2017;Hicks et al, 2018). They have also been found to be dominant in healthy shrimp and absent in shell-diseased brown crabs (Chen et al, 2017;Bergen et al, 2022). Lastly, members of the Acidimicrobiia were previously detected in healthy (not shell-diseased) lobsters (Chistoserdov et al, 2012;Quinn et al, 2013;Feinmann et al, 2017;Zha et al, 2019) and brown crabs (Bergen et al, 2022).…”

Shell disease syndromes of decapod crustaceans

“…These lesion communities show significant reductions in richness, diversity and evenness when compared to healthy cuticle, and reinforce the concept that shell disease is an example of a dysbiotic condition. Recently, Bergen et al (2022) showed that shell disease lesions in C. pagurus caught in the Baltic Sea have reduced microbial community composition with an increase in Aquimarina spp. Overall, shell disease is one of an expanding group of conditions displaying the polymicrobial nature of invertebrate pathologies (Bass et al, 2019;Munkongwongsiri et al, 2022;Petton et al, 2021;Sharma & Ravindran, 2020).…”

“…Within invertebrate pathology, there is an increasing focus on the concept of the ‘pathobiome’ (Bass et al, 2019 ), and several disease conditions ranging from those in corals to more advanced aquatic invertebrates, appear to be multi‐factorial in nature involving more than one microbe/parasite often with an environmental driver (Bourne et al, 2022 ; Petton et al, 2021 ; Sweet & Bulling, 2017 ). Shell disease is currently considered a dysbiotic condition resulting from changes in epibiotic (microbial) populations (Bergen et al, 2022 ; Chistoserdov et al, 2012 ; Feinman et al, 2017 ; Meres, 2016 ; Meres et al, 2012 ). As well as ESD already described, tail fan necrosis of spiny lobsters is characterized by lesions with a consortium of microbes, including Flavobacterium , Streptomyces , Neptunomonas , other Flavobacteriaceae and Thiohalhabdales , as well as Aquimarina (Zha et al, 2019 ).…”

“…These lesion communities show significant reductions in richness, diversity and evenness when compared to healthy cuticle, and reinforce the concept that shell disease is an example of a dysbiotic condition. Recently, Bergen et al ( 2022 ) showed that shell disease lesions in C . pagurus caught in the Baltic Sea have reduced microbial community composition with an increase in Aquimarina spp.…”