Effects of illumination on bacterial communities in symbiotic amphibian egg masses

The salamander Ambystoma maculatum hosts the symbiotic green alga Oophila amblystomatis in its egg capsules. But the egg capsules are colonized by other microbes, including bacteria, that may be important in this special community ecology. We split three egg masses in half, and reared half of each mass in illuminated or a darkened conditions, thus preventing algal growth. We subjected egg capsular fluid from the two conditions to 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing (V4-V5 region).

斑点钝口螈（Ambystoma maculatum）的卵荚内共生有嗜蝾螈卵藻（Oophila amblystomatis）这种绿藻。但该卵荚同时会被包括细菌在内的其他微生物定殖，这些微生物在这一特殊的群落生态系统中可能具有重要作用。我们将3个卵团均分为两半，将每个卵团的一半分别置于光照或黑暗环境中培养，以此抑制藻类生长。随后，我们对两种环境下采集的卵荚液进行了16S核糖体RNA（16S rRNA）基因扩增子测序（V4-V5区域）。