Mollusks are a diverse group of animals not only at the species level but also with respect to their habitat and behavior. Gastropods comprise 80% of the mollusks with approximately 62,000 living species including snails. Over the period of time, snails have evolved into marine, freshwater and terrestrial forms with a transitional shift in their feeding habits. From prehistoric times, mollusks have established an intimate relationship with humans. These animals are used as food, medicine, offering to gods and are also responsible for economic losses in the form of agricultural pests. As most of these animals feed on plant biomass, their guts have evolved to digest such lignocellulosic biomass with extraordinary efficiency. The plant fiber digestion in their guts depends predominantly on the metabolic activities of the gastro-intestinal microflora. Besides digestive functions, the seasonal dynamic and spatial distribution of bacterial gut community largely influences cold hardiness and many other metabolic properties in snails. Here, we assessed an overview of the various bacterial populations dwelling in digestive tracts of snails. This chapter provides insights into the gut microbiome of various snails that can be exploited for various industrial applications such as biomass degradation, production of biofuel, paper, wine and laundry detergents.
The wood‐feeding termite Coptotermes formosanus represents a unique and impressive system for lignocellulose degradation. The highly efficient digestion of lignocellulose is achieved through symbiosis with gut symbionts like bacteria. Despite extensive research during the last three decades, diversity of bacterial symbionts residing in individual gut regions of the termite and their associated functions is still lacking. To this end, cellulose, xylan, and dye‐decolorization bacteria residing in foregut, midgut, and hindgut regions of C. formosanus were enlisted by using enrichment and culture‐dependent molecular methods. A total of 87 bacterial strains were successfully isolated from different gut regions of C. formosanus which belonged to 27 different species of 10 genera, majorly affiliated with Proteobacteria (80%) and Firmicutes (18.3%). Among the gut regions, 37.9% of the total bacterial isolates were observed in the hindgut that demonstrated predominance of cellulolytic bacteria (47.6%). The majority of the xylanolytic and dye‐decolorization bacteria (50%) were obtained from the foregut and midgut, respectively. Actinobacteria represented by Dietza sp. was observed in the hindgut only. Based on species richness, the highest diversity was observed in midgut and hindgut regions each of which harbored seven unique bacterial species. The members of Enterobacter, Klebsiella, and Pseudomonas were common among the gut regions. The lignocellulolytic activities of the selected potential bacteria signpost their assistance to the host for lignocellulose digestion. The overall results indicate that C. formosanus harbors diverse communities of lignocellulolytic bacteria in different regions of the gut system. These observations will significantly advance our understanding of the termite–bacteria symbiosis and their microbial ecology uniquely existed in different gut regions of C. formosanus, which may further shed a light on its potential values at termite‐modeled biotechnology.
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