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. 2022 Oct 1;12(10):e9373.
doi: 10.1002/ece3.9373. eCollection 2022 Oct.

Convergent evolution of the gut microbiome in marine carnivores

Xibao Wang  1 , Xiaoyang Wu  1 , Yongquan Shang  1 , Xuesong Mei  1 , Shengyang Zhou  1 , Qinguo Wei  1 , Guolei Sun  1 , Yuehuan Dong  1 , Honghai Zhang  1
Affiliations

Convergent evolution of the gut microbiome in marine carnivores

Xibao Wang et al. Ecol Evol. .

Abstract

The gut microbiome can help the host adapt to a variety of environments and is affected by many factors. Marine carnivores have unique habitats in extreme environments. The question of whether marine habitats surpass phylogeny to drive the convergent evolution of the gut microbiome in marine carnivores remains unanswered. In the present study, we compared the gut microbiomes of 16 species from different habitats. Principal component analysis (PCA) and principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) separated three groups according to their gut microbiomes: marine carnivores, terrestrial carnivores, and terrestrial herbivores. The alpha diversity and niche breadth of the gut microbiome of marine carnivores were lower than those of the gut microbiome of terrestrial carnivores and terrestrial herbivores. The gut microbiome of marine carnivores harbored many marine microbiotas, including those belonging to the phyla Planctomycetes, Cyanobacteria, and Proteobacteria, and the genus Peptoclostridium. Collectively, these results revealed that marine habitats drive the convergent evolution of the gut microbiome of marine carnivores. This study provides a new perspective on the adaptive evolution of marine carnivores.

Keywords: convergent evolution; gut microbiome; marine carnivores; marine habitat.

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Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Kruskal‐Wallis test of gut microbiome alpha diversity between species. The abscissa is the species, and the ordinate is the numerical value. p Value less than .05 indicates that the difference between groups is significant.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Niche breadth of the gut microbiome between species. The abscissa is the species, and the ordinate is the numerical value of niche breadth.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Principal component analysis (PCA; a) and principal coordinate analysis (PCoA; b) of gut microbiome composition. Each ellipse represents the gut microbiome of a group.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Analysis of similarities (Anosim) between groups. The abscissa is the groups, and the ordinate is the numerical value of distance rank. R value greater than zero indicates that the difference between groups is greater than that within groups. p value less than .05 indicates that the difference between the groups is significant.
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Gut microbiome composition between groups at the phylum (a) and genus (b) levels. Each bar represents the top 10 bacterial species sorted by relative abundance in each group.
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 6
Kruskal‐Wallis test at the phylum (a) and genus (b) levels between groups. p value less than .05 indicates that the difference between the groups is significant (the numbers in the figure are p values; ***p < .001). Different colors represent different groups.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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