Dietary effect of low fishmeal aquafeed on gut microbiota of olive flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) at different growth stages (MBO3_2019_06_0239_raw data)

This study was conducted to investigate the long-term effect of a low
fishmeal (FM) diet comprising plant-based protein sources (PPS) on changes of
gut microbial diversity in olive flounder (Paralichthys
olivaceus) over the course of life. Two experimental diets were prepared to
contain 74% FM (control) or 52% FM with 22% PPS (30% FM replacement, FM30).
Fish were fed one of the two
experimental diets for eight months, and we collected the midgut contents to
analyze the gut bacterial community by Illumina Miseq based on the metagenomic
sequences in the V3-V4 regions of 16S rRNA. We found that there were nine
dominant phyla, which in turn presented Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and
Actinobacteria as the three major phyla in the gut microbiota of the flounder.
At genus level, the dominant genera were Delftia,
Prevotella, and Chthoniobacter at the juvenile stage (below 100 g/fish); Chthoniobacter, Bacillus, and Bradyrhizobium
at the grower stage (400 g/fish); Chthoniobacter,
Bacillus, and Delftia at the sub-adult stage (800 g/fish); and Lactobacillus, and Prevotella at the adult stage (over 1,000 g/fish). The microbial
diversity in olive flounders arched from the juvenile and sub-adult stage and
reached a plateau thereafter. The fish fed the FM30 diet significantly had an
increased abundance of Lactobacillus
and Photobacterium and had less
abundance of Prevotella and Paraprevotella than the control.
However, the effect of dietary PPS was not significant on total microbial
richness, indicating no negative effect as feed sources on the intestinal
microbiota in olive flounder. These results indicate that the life stage of
olive flounder is more important in modulating intestinal microbiota than is
the diet. It could also be concluded that dietary PPS might be used as a
potential fishmeal alternative without any compromising effects on microbial
diversity of olive flounder for long-term feeding.