Microbiome and foraging data from sheepshead minnows (Cyprinodon variegatus) after exposure to oil

The Deepwater Horizon disaster of April 2010 was the largest oil spill in U.S. history and had catastrophic effects on several ecologically important fish species in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). This study tested the hypotheses that exposure to weathered oil would cause significant shifts in fish gut-associated microbial communities with taxa known for hydrocarbon degradation increasing in abundance and that foraging behavior would decrease, potentially due to microbial dysbiosis via the gut-brain axis. The gut microbiome (16S rRNA) of a native GoM estuarine species, the sheepshead minnow (Cyprinodon variegatus) was characterized. Fish were exposed to oil in High Energy Water Accommodated Fractions (HEWAF; tPAH = 80.99 ± 12.5 μg/L) over a 7-day period and whole gastrointestinal tracts were sampled for microbiome analyses. A foraging behavioral assay was used to determine feeding efficiency before and after oil exposure. The fish gut microbiome did not experience any significant changes in alpha or beta diversity, yet the gut selected some microbes from the environment, resulting in a less diverse community than the water environment.