Microbial signature profiles of Penaeus vannamei larvae in low-survival hatchery tanks

In this work, we characterized by high-throughput sequencing the microbiome of larvae from low-survival tanks that were affected and unaffected by AHPND. For this purpose, we collected samples from 13 tanks with low survival to harvest from a commercial hatchery during four stages (Mysis 3, postlarva 4, postlarva 7 and postlarva 10) of a production cycle. The present study hypothesizes that each disease has specific microbial signatures. In the case of AHPND, these could be used as microbial markers to help diagnose the disease or to differentiate AHPND from other diseases when hatchery tanks exhibit low survival.