A Slimy Business: the Future of Fish Skin Microbiome Studies

Relationships between pond water and tilapia skin microbiomes in aquaculture ponds in Malawi

“…The core microbiome refers to taxa found in the majority of samples which, by inference, may therefore play an important functional role in the microbiome. Fourteen prokaryotic core genera (from a total 770 genera) were identified in tilapia skin, consistent with previously published findings from other studies of fewer than 20 core OTUs on fish skin (reviewed by Gomez and Primm, 2021;Rosado et al, 2019a). Among the core genera found in the tilapia skin, Cetobacterium has been widely reported as a core genus in the gut of freshwater fish (Liu et al, 2016;Sharpton et al, 2021), including tilapia (Bereded et al, 2020;Elsaied et al, 2019).…”

“…At finer taxonomic scales further separation between the skin and pond water profiles was seen, and conserved across all ponds sites, with 25 ASVs differentially enriched at the fish skin mucosal surface. The abundances assessed at coarse taxonomic classifications reflected previous reports, namely that Proteobacteia (and in particular Gammaproteobacteria) dominated the fish skin mucosal surface, as seen in a variety of freshwater cichlids (Krotman et al, 2020); reviewed in depth by Gomez and Primm (2021). The next most abundant bacterial classes in the fish skin were Verrucomicrobiae, Bacteroidia and Clostridia.…”

Mediterranean Sea heatwaves jeopardize greater amberjack’s (Seriola dumerili) aquaculture productivity through impacts on the fish microbiota

“…This niche-specific development is coincident with other teleost studies, where the microbiotas in outermost mucosal surfaces were more similar to the water column than the innermost parts, such as the gut, due to its continuous state of interaction [ 42 , 43 ]. In addition, the shifts in microbial composition in mucosal tissues over our three-month study period, at the control temperature, can be attributed to the host selection pressure that has been observed in other species [ 44 – 46 ]. Yet, other studies have shown that only the most abundant phylum (Proteobacteria) was shared between fish skin and gills and the surrounding water [ 47 ].…”

Temporal changes in skin and gill microbiomes of Atlantic salmon in a recirculating aquaculture system – Why do they matter?

“…Despite the importance of the external mucosa, studies relating to skin and particuarly gill microbiomes in salmonids are few in number. A recent review of fish skin microbiomes (Gomez and Primm, 2021) identified just 6 papers related to salmonids analysing inter-individual variation (Boutin et al, 2014), tissue comparisons (Lowrey et al, 2015), fresh-and salt-water communities (Lokesh and Kiron, 2016;Hamilton et al, 2019), response to handling stress (Minniti et al, 2017) and relative contribution of environment and genetics (Uren Webster et al, 2018). Additionally, effect of culture system and mucosal proteome interactions (Minniti et al, 2019) have been analysed.…”