The microbial landscape of sea stars and the intra-animal variability of their microbiome

We characterized the microbiome composition of a geographically and taxonomically diverse set of asteroid taxa by using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to evaluate microorganisms associated with the body wall, gonads, pyloric caeca and coelomic fluid. We analyzed diversity, diversity, and community composition of Bacteria and Archaea for 75 tissue samples representing 12 distinct Asteroid taxa and compared these results to their surrounding environment (sea water)