Siganus fuscescens Raw sequence reads. Siganus fuscescens

In this study, we aimed to understand how the diversity and assembly mechanisms of microbial communities from different body habitats (gill, skin, stomach and hindgut) change with development of Siganus fuscescen. As one excellent natural marine source of nutritional lipids, S. fuscescens are truly herbivorous and concurrently omnivorous fish, and commercially important marine teleost fish, which is widespread at coastal areas. They also can bio-transform toxic arsenic to detoxify inorganic arsenic, making it safer for humans to eat. We hypothesized that the overall diversity of fish-associated microbial communities from different habitats would increase as body weight increased due to increased nutrient requirements and immunity for the host.