Bacterial Community in Gut Contents of the Sea Urchin Diadema setosum (Leske, 1778) and the Ambient Sediments from Sichang Island using Metagenomics Approaches

Abstract

Next-generation sequencing of 16S rRNA gene was applied for the study of bacterial communities in the gut contents of sea urchin, Diadema setosum and from the ambient sediments which were collected from Tha Wang Coast, Sichang Island, Chonburi, Thailand. Both species richness and diversity in the ambient sediments were greater than the diversity in the gut content samples. In the gut content samples, Bacteroidetes was found as the most abundant phylum whereas in the ambient sediments was predominated by Proteobacteria. The results indicated that bacterial communities between gut content and the sediments were clustered into different groups.It is somewhat surprising from this study that bacteria in genus Fusibacter was detected in the gut content samples which have not been reported in other species of sea urchin so far.
Also, sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) were detected in gut content samples. This group of bacteria might play a crucial role in sulfate metabolism in their host intestine