The microbiome buffers tadpole hosts from heat stress: a hologenomic approach to understand host-microbe interactions under warming

We exposed two groups of green frog tadpoles that differed in their microbiome composition to heat stress or control conditions. We subsequently used RNAseq to profile gene expression in their gut to understand how the microbiome impacts host responses to heat. Overall design: We had two microbiome treatments: colonized which were tadpoles with natural microbiomes and depleted which were tadpoles with artificially disrupted microbiomes (less diversity, changed composition). We had two temperature treatments: heat stress (32 Celsius, warm) or control (22 Celsius, cool). There were 5 tadpoles in each group (20 total animals). The heat stress treatment lasted 24 hours after which all tadpoles were dissected to remove the gut for RNAseq.