Data from: The specific and exclusive microbiome of the deep-sea bone-eating snail, Rubyspira osteovora

Rubyspira osteovora is an unusual deep-sea snail from Monterey Canyon, CA. This group has only been found on decomposing whales and is thought to use bone as a novel source of nutrition. This study characterized the gut microbiome of R. osteovora, compared to the surrounding environment, as well as to other deep-sea snails with more typical diets. Analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that R. osteovora digestive tissues hosted a much lower bacterial diversity (average Shannon index of 1.9; n = 12), compared to environmental samples (average Shannon index of 4.4; n = 2) and were dominated by two bacterial genera: Mycoplasma and Psychromonas (comprising up to 56% and 42% average total recovered sequences, respectively). These two bacteria, along with Psychrilyobacter sp. (∼16% average recovered sequences), accounted for between 43–92% of the total recovered sequences in individual snail digestive systems, with other OTUs present at much lower proportions. The relative abundance of these three groups remained similar over six years of sampling (collection date was not shown to be a significant predictor of community structure), suggesting a long-term association. Further, these bacterial genera were either not present (Mycoplasma and Psychromonas), or at very low abundance (< 0.04% for Psychrilyobacter), in environmental samples and other deep-sea gastropods, supporting the uniqueness of the R. osteovora gut microbiome.