In China's very profitable marine aquaculture business, crustaceans (Crassostrea gigas) are grown on a vast scale. However, there have been numerous mass fatalities of farmed oysters in recent years owing to disease and environmental factors (such as high temperatures). We employed highthroughput sequencing to evaluate the dynamics of bacterial and protist communities in oysters at different growth stages to investigate potential links between microorganisms and oyster farming mortality.
As a result, the microbial communities of farmed oysters evolved dramatically and differed significantly from those of natural oysters and ambient bacteria. As the oysters grew larger, the number of biomarker taxa between them and their surroundings dropped. The number of ecologically useful genes in the microbial community changed during the mass extinction of cultivated oysters, and inter-microbial connections vanished. These findings add to our understanding of the microbial community dynamics of cultured oysters at various growth stages and characterise microorganism interactions during mass mortality in cultured oysters. Our research contributes to the promotion of healthy oyster farming.
Published Date: 2023-09-15; Received Date: 2023-05-08
