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Characterization of the intestinal microbiota of two Antarctic notothenioid fish species

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Abstract

The fish fauna of the Southern Ocean is dominated by species of the perciform suborder Notothenioidei, which constitute 46% of fish species and 90% of biomass. Notothenioids have undergone rapid morphological and ecological diversification and developed physiological adaptations to a cold, highly oxygenated environment. Microbes inhabiting animal intestines include those that perform essential nutritional functions, but notothenioid gut microbial communities have not been investigated using cultivation-independent approaches. We analyzed bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences obtained from the intestinal tract of Notothenia coriiceps and Chaenocephalus aceratus, which differ in their pelagic distribution and feeding strategies. Both samples showed dominance of Gammaproteobacteria (mostly Vibrionaceae), as has been reported for temperate teleost species. Both samples showed low diversity relative to that reported for other fish microbiota studies, with C. aceratus containing fewer OTUs than N. coriiceps. Despite the small sample size of this preliminary study, our findings suggest that Antarctic notothenioids carry a gut microbiota similar in composition to that of temperate fish, but exhibiting lower species-level diversity. The omnivorous N. coriiceps individual exhibited greater diversity than the exclusively carnivorous C. aceratus individual, which may indicate that increasing herbivory in fish leads to gut microbe diversification, as found in mammals. Lastly, we detected members of taxa containing known microbial pathogens, which have not been previously reported in Antarctic notothenioid fish.

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Abbreviations

16S rRNA:

16S ribosomal RNA

NCI:

Notothenia coriiceps sequence library

CAI:

Chaenocephalus aceratus sequence library

OTU:

Operational taxonomic unit

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the excellent logistic support provided to our Antarctic field research program, performed at Palmer Station and on the seas of the Palmer Archipelago, by the staff of the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation, by the officers and crew of the ARSV Laurence M. Gould, and by the personnel of Raytheon Polar Services Company. Funding was provided by NSF grants OPP-0089451, OPP-0336932, and ANT-0635470 (to H·W.D.). N.L.W. was also supported by NSF grant EPS-0447681.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Biology, University of Wyoming, Dept 3944, 1000 E. University Ave, Laramie, WY, 82071, USA

    Naomi L. Ward & Blaire Steven

  2. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, USA

    Kevin Penn

  3. J. Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, USA

    Barbara A. Methé

  4. Department of Biology, Northeastern University, Boston, USA

    William H. Detrich III

Authors
  1. Naomi L. Ward
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  2. Blaire Steven
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  3. Kevin Penn
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  4. Barbara A. Methé
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  5. William H. Detrich III
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Naomi L. Ward.

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Communicated by H. Santos.

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Ward, N.L., Steven, B., Penn, K. et al. Characterization of the intestinal microbiota of two Antarctic notothenioid fish species. Extremophiles 13, 679–685 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-009-0252-4

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