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. 2023;850(17):3823-3835.
doi: 10.1007/s10750-022-04862-4. Epub 2022 May 5.

Turning the tide on sex and the microbiota in aquatic animals

Kieran A Bates  1 , Chelsea Higgins  2 , Maurine Neiman  2   3 , Kayla C King  1
Affiliations

Turning the tide on sex and the microbiota in aquatic animals

Kieran A Bates et al. Hydrobiologia. 2023.

Abstract

Sex-based differences in animal microbiota are increasingly recognized as of biological importance. While most animal biomass is found in aquatic ecosystems and many water-dwelling species are of high economic and ecological value, biological sex is rarely included as an explanatory variable in studies of the aquatic animal microbiota. In this opinion piece, we argue for greater consideration of host sex in studying the microbiota of aquatic animals, emphasizing the many advancements that this information could provide in the life sciences, from the evolution of sex to aquaculture.

Keywords: Aquatic animals; Microbiome; Sex.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interestThe authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Bar plot of number of Earth Microbiome Project Database (The Earth Microbiome Project Consortium et al., 2017) studies based on terrestrial or aquatic environment and host sex in animals. Sample metadata were searched using the tool rediom (McDonald et al., 2019) with the terms “animal & terrestrial/aquatic & male/female” within the context “Deblur-Illumina-16S-V4-90nt-99d1d8” which was selected based on having the highest number of samples
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