Atlantic salmon gut microbiome - effect of essential oils and probiotics

The goal of the study was to determine the effect of diets supplemented with essential oils and probiotic cultures on Atlantic salmon under farm conditions. The relevance of the work was to determine if supplements could influence the gut microbiota including core species and determine if microbiome can be correlated to farm performance and gut lining architecture. Microbiome data was compared to fish growth performance data including feeding rates, fed conversion rates, and growth rates. The associated gut histology was also studied. Digesta samples from experimental diet fed Atlantic salmon were collected after 6 to 12 weeks feeding and compared to samples from fish fed control (standard unsupplemented) diets. The microbiome of the digesta was determined using the Illumina MiSeq platform with 16S rRNA (V1-V3 region) amplicons analysed. The data obtained was compared to the farm performance and gut histology measurements via mutlivariate statistics.