Adult zebra fish underwent a 21 day starvation and refeeding period. Fish gut microbiomes were sampled at 0, 1, 3, 7 and 21 days post starvation. Then sampled at 1, 3, 7, and 21 days post refeeding.. Effects of starvation and refeeding of zebrafish gut microbiome

Evidence increasingly supports that diet has a determinative influence on the gut microbiome in diverse animal hosts, yet how microbiomes respond to and recover from drastic dietary perturbations remains poorly understood. These effects likely result from complex interactions between host physiology and diet, environmental characteristics, and the robustness and resilience of microbial communities. We investigated dietary disruptions in adult zebrafish (Danio rerio), from which food can be withheld for prolonged periods without mortality. We monitored the microbiomes of conventionally reared adult zebrafish hosts and their water environments across a three-week starvation and three-week re-feeding period. We constructed a sequence variants table from 16S rRNA gene sequence data using DADA2. The most significant differences in gut microbiomes between the fed and starved groups were observed immediately following the two perturbations, one day after starvation onset and one day after refeeding onset. Preliminary results indicate increased similarity between the microbiomes of the starved fish guts and their water environments than between fed fish guts and their environments, but this difference was no longer detectable by 7 days post-refeeding. This project adds to a growing body of work suggesting that the gut microbiome is sensitive to perturbations, but also resilient.