Metatranscriptomics of symbiotic bathmodiolin mussels

Microbial strain variability is virtually universal, from deep-sea environments to the human gut, but the complexity of most natural microbial communities poses an immense challenge for understanding its functional ecological and evolutionary consequences. Bathymodiolus mussels are ideal for understanding strain variability because they naturally host only a few species of symbiotic bacteria. We sequenced metatranscriptomes from 17 Bathymodiolus individuals from different hydrothermal vents in the Atlantic to test whether strain-specific genes were expressed.