Diet is an important factor in shaping the microbiome. In addition to understanding the link between the microbiome and the innate immune system, sessile invertebrates can expand our understanding of how diet shapes microbiome composition. Understanding how invertebrates are able to distinguish pathogens from commensals, and how the hemolymph microbiome shifts under varying stresses, have been underlying questions of many microbiome studies. Hemolymph consists of hemocytes that perform defense functions such as phagocytosis, and the production of reactive oxygen species to rid the host of pathogens. For marine invertebrates, hemolymph is a critical component of the immunological response. Like all invertebrates, sessile invertebrates only possess an innate immune system which lacks immunological memory, whereas vertebrates have both innate and adaptive immune systems. Sessile invertebrates have unique life-history traits that shape their microbiome. Despite our growing knowledge of host-microbiome interactions and the factors that shape them across a range of species, there is still a lack of understanding of how the microbiome and its functions are maintained across space and time in many sessile marine invertebrates, particularly those that inhabit intertidal environments. Yet, the strength of the symbiotic relationship between hosts and their microbiomes, and the reliance of hosts on their microbiome functions, varies across species. The microbiome provides several functions to its host, including nutrient acquisition and protection from pathogens, and without a microbiome some species show reductions in development rates and other measures of organismal fitness. Like all animals, marine invertebrates have evolved in close association with microbes, forming symbiotic relationships with microorganisms known as the microbiome. balanoides maintains distinct microbiomes in its cirri and gut tissues, and that the gut microbiome is more stable than the cirri microbiome between the extremes of the intertidal. Additionally, we identified that the cirri microbiome was responsive to microhabitat differences. Notably, the gut microbiome was not a subset of the cirri microbiome. Over 80% of the ASVs found in the cirri were also found in the gut, and 44% of the ASVs found in the gut were also found in the cirri. Our results showed that although cirri and gut microbiomes shared a portion of their amplicon sequence variants (ASVs), the microbiome of each body tissue was distinct. balanoides consisted of 18 phyla from 408 genera. Next, we examine whether there are differences between the microbiome of each body tissue of barnacles collected from the thermally extreme microhabitats of the rocky shores’ upper and lower tidal zones. We first describe the microbiome of two body tissues: the feeding appendages, or cirri, and the gut. In this study, we investigate the microbiome of the intertidal barnacle Semibalanus balanoides. However, very few microbiome studies focus on animals that inhabit the intertidal. Natural populations inhabiting the rocky intertidal experience multiple ecological stressors and provide an opportunity to investigate how environmental differences influence microbiomes over small geographical scales.
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