The intestinal microbiota of hybrid catfish (Ictalurus punctatus x I. furcatus) cultured in earthen ponds

Pond raised hybrid catfish (Ictalurus punctatus x I. furcatus) were fed commercial diets (28% crude protein/3% lipid) for four months before sampling. Two hundred fish from three earthen ponds were collected and average body mass was recorded. Digesta samples were collected from the 15 largest and 15 smallest fish for DNA extraction. The V4 region of the bacteria 16S rRNA gene was amplified and sequenced on an Illumina MiSeq platform.