Microbial dysbiosis precedes signs of sea star wasting disease in wild populations of Pycnopodia helianthoides

Sea star wasting (SSW) disease, a massive and ongoing epidemic with unknown cause(s), has led to the rapid death and decimation of sea star populations with cascading ecological consequences. Changes in microbial community structure have been previously associated with SSW, however, it remains unknown if SSW-associated dysbiosis is a mechanism or artifact of disease progression, particularly in wild populations. Here, we compare the microbiomes of the sunflower sea star, Pycnopodia helianthoides, before (Naïve) and during (Exposed and Wasting) the initial outbreak in Southeast Alaska to identify changes and interactions in the microbial communities associated with sea star health and disease exposure. We found an increase in microbial diversity (both alpha and beta diversity) preceding signs of disease and an increase in abundance of facultative and obligate anaerobes (most notably Vibrio) in both Exposed (apparently healthy) and Wasting animals. Complementing these changes in microbial..., Sample collection 
Samples were collected in the summer of 2016 off the coast of Southeast Alaska (Fig. S1). With the aid of SCUBA, a biopsy from a single ray was collected underwater from each sampled sea star, and isolated until in a wet lab aboard a research vessel (R/V Kestrel, Alaska Department of Fish and Game).  Epidermal biopsy samples were collected from sea stars at both impacted and naïve sites at depths ranging from 7 to 18 meters. Seven total sites were sampled (2 Naïve and 5 impacted) with a total of 18 Wasting, 20 Exposed, and 47 Naïve individuals sampled (total N=85). Nonlethal biopsy punches (3.5mm diameter biopsy punch, Robbins Instruments, Chatham, NJ) were taken from the body wall of each individual and preserved in RNAlater (ThermoFisher Scientific, Waltham, MA) in 2ml tubes. Only epidermal body wall tissue was sampled, even when sampling wasting individuals. For individuals displaying SSW symptoms, wasting epidermal tissue at the edge of the lesion was sampled. All..., , ---

# Microbial dysbiosis precedes signs of Sea Star Wasting Disease in wild populations of Pycnopodia helianthoides

---

This dataset contains organized datafiles use in our analysis of the microbiome of wild sunflow sea stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides) in an area of southern Alaska as a wasting disease impacted the area for the first time. We include our raw ASV in a dataframe with predicted taxanomic assignment, outputs from Qiime2 16s RNA pipeline for microbial diversity, differential abundance tables, Picrust2 functional analysis results, and bipartite clustering results.

## Data and file structure

Metadata File:

* `SRA_16s_Pycno_metadata` is a file containing metadata on each sample. naming convention for column \"site-animal-health\" is HH = Naive, SH = Exposed, and SS = Wasting

Qiime2 Files:

* `table.qzv` is a qiime2 view file containing ASV and abundance metrics
* `table-lev7.qzv` is a Qiime2 view file containing the Species-level features and abundances across sampl...