Interactions and Stability of Gut Microbiota in Zebrafish Increase with Host Development
Fanshu Xiao, Wengen Zhu, Yuhe Yu, Jie Huang, Juan Li, Zhili He, Jianjun Wang, Huaqun Yin, Yu Huang, Shengwei Liu, Pubo Chen, Zhijian Huang, Jianguo He, Cheng Wang, Longfei Shu, Qingyun Yan
Abstract
Understanding gut microbial stability and the underlying mechanisms is an important but largely ignored ecological issue in vertebrate fish. Here, using a zebrafish model and network analysis of the gut microbiota we found that microbial interactions and stability in the gut ecosystem increase with fish development. This finding has important implications for microbial management to maintain gut homeostasis and provide better gut ecosystem services for the host. First, future studies should always consider using fish of different age groups to gain a full understanding of gut microbial networks. Second, management of the keystone taxa, even those that are only present at a low abundance, during the adult stage may be a viable pathway to maintain gut ecosystem stability. This study greatly expands our current knowledge regarding gut ecosystem stability in terms of ecological networks affected by fish development, and also highlights potential directions for gut microbial management in humans and other animals.