Mangrovimonas cancribranchiae sp. nov., a novel bacterial species associated with the gills of the fiddler crab Cranuca inversa (Brachyura, Ocypodidae) from Red Sea mangroves.

Two bacteria, UG2_1T and UG2_2, were isolated from the gill tissues of the mangrove fiddler crab Cranuca inversa collected on the east coast of the Red Sea (Thuwal, Saudi Arabia). The cells are Gram-negative, rod-shaped, orange-pigmented, motile by gliding with no flagella, strictly aerobic, and grow at 20-37 °C (optimum, 28-35 °C), at pH 5.0-9.0 (optimum, pH 6.0-7.0), and with 1-11 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 2-4 %). They were positive for oxidase and catalase activity. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that isolates UG2_1T and UG2_2 belong to the genus Mangrovimonas, showing the highest similarity to Mangrovimonas spongiae HN-E26T (99.4 %). Phylogenomic analysis based on the whole genomes, independently using 49 and 120 concatenated genes, showed that strains UG2_1T and UG2_2 formed a monophyletic lineage in a different cluster from other type strain species within the genus Mangrovimonas. The genome sizes were 3.08 and 3.07 Mbp for UG2_1T and UG2_2, respectively, with a G+C content of 33.8 mol% for both strains. Values of average nucleotide identity and digital DNA-DNA hybridization between the strains and closely related species were 91.0 and 43.5 %, respectively. Chemotaxonomic analysis indicated that both strains had iso-C15 : 0 and iso-C15 : 1 G as dominant fatty acids, and the primary respiratory quinone was identified as MK-6. The major polar lipids comprised phosphatidylethanolamine, one unidentified glycolipid, one unidentified phospholipid, two unidentified aminolipids, and four unidentified lipids. Based on phylogenetic, phylogenomic, genome relatedness, phenotypic, and chemotaxonomical data, the two isolates represent a novel species within the genus Mangrovimonas, with the proposed name Mangrovimonas cancribranchiae sp. nov., and the type strain UG2_1T (=KCTC 102158T=DSM 117025T).

A functional analysis reveals extremely low redundancy in global mangrove invertebrate fauna.

Deforestation results in habitat fragmentation, decreasing diversity, and functional degradation. For mangroves, no data are available on the impact of deforestation on the diversity and functionality of the specialized invertebrate fauna, critical for their functioning. We compiled a global dataset of mangrove invertebrate fauna comprising 364 species from 16 locations, classified into 64 functional entities (FEs). For each location, we calculated taxonomic distinctness (Δ+), functional richness (FRi), functional redundancy (FRe), and functional vulnerability (FVu) to assess functional integrity. Δ+ and FRi were significantly related to air temperature but not to geomorphic characteristics, mirroring the global biodiversity anomaly of mangrove trees. Neither of those two indices was linked to forest area, but both sharply decreased in human-impacted mangroves. About 60% of the locations showed an average FRe < 2, indicating that most of the FEs comprised one species only. Notable exceptions were the Eastern Indian Ocean and west Pacific Ocean locations, but also in this region, 57% of the FEs had no redundancy, placing mangroves among the most vulnerable ecosystems on the planet. Our study shows that despite low redundancy, even small mangrove patches host truly multifunctional faunal assemblages, ultimately underpinning their services. However, our analyses also suggest that even a modest local loss of invertebrate diversity could have significant negative consequences for many mangroves and cascading effects for adjacent ecosystems. This pattern of faunal-mediated ecosystem functionality is crucial for assessing the vulnerability of mangrove forests to anthropogenic impact and provides an approach to planning their effective conservation and restoration.

Rootstock-scion combination contributes to shape diversity and composition of microbial communities associated with grapevine root system.

To alleviate biotic and abiotic stresses and enhance fruit yield, many crops are cultivated in the form of grafted plants, in which the shoot (scion) and root (rootstock) systems of different species are joined together. Because (i) the plant species determines the microbial recruitment from the soil to the root and (ii) both scion and rootstock impact the physiology, morphology and biochemistry of the grafted plant, it can be expected that their different combinations should affect the recruitment and assembly of plant microbiome. To test our hypothesis, we investigated at a field scale the bacterial and fungal communities associated with the root system of seven grapevine rootstock-scion combinations cultivated across 10 different vineyards. Following the soil type, which resulted in the main determinant of the grapevine root microbial community diversity, the rootstock-scion combination resulted more important than the two components taken alone. Notably, the microbiome differences among the rootstock-scion combinations were mainly dictated by the changes in the relative abundance of microbiome members rather than by their presence/absence. These results reveal that the microbiome of grafted grapevine root systems is largely influenced by the combination of rootstock and scion, which affects the microbial diversity uptaken from soil.

Environmental micro-niche filtering shapes bacterial pioneer communities during primary colonization of a Himalayas' glacier forefield.

The pedogenesis from the mineral substrate released upon glacier melting has been explained with the succession of consortia of pioneer microorganisms, whose structure and functionality are determined by the environmental conditions developing in the moraine. However, the microbiome variability that can be expected in the environmentally heterogeneous niches occurring in a moraine at a given successional stage is poorly investigated. In a 50 m2 area in the forefield of the Lobuche glacier (Himalayas, 5050 m above sea level), we studied six sites of primary colonization presenting different topographical features (orientation, elevation and slope) and harbouring greyish/dark biological soil crusts (BSCs). The spatial vicinity of the sites opposed to their topographical differences, allowed us to examine the effect of environmental conditions independently from the time of deglaciation. The bacterial microbiome diversity and their co-occurrence network, the bacterial metabolisms predicted from 16S rRNA gene high-throughput sequencing, and the microbiome intact polar lipids were investigated in the BSCs and the underlying sediment deep layers (DLs). Different bacterial microbiomes inhabited the BSCs and the DLs, and their composition varied among sites, indicating a niche-specific role of the micro-environmental conditions in the bacterial communities' assembly. In the heterogeneous sediments of glacier moraines, physico-chemical and micro-climatic variations at the site-spatial scale are crucial in shaping the microbiome microvariability and structuring the pioneer bacterial communities during pedogenesis.

Approaching the domesticated plant holobiont from a community evolution perspective.

Plants establish a pivotal relationship with their microbiome and are often conceptualized as holobionts. Nonetheless, holobiont theories have attracted much criticism, especially concerning the fact that the holobiont is rarely a unit of selection. In previous work, we discussed how the plant microbiome can be considered to be an 'ecosystem on a leash', which is subject to the influence of natural selection acting on plant traits. We proposed that in domesticated plants the assembly of the plant microbiome can usefully be conceptualized as being subject to a 'double leash', which encompasses both the effect of artificial selection imposed by the domesticator on plant traits and the leash from the plant to the microbiome. Here we approach the domesticated plant holobiont, simply defined as a community of organisms, from a community evolution point of view, and show how community heritability (a measure of community selection) complements the 'double-leash' framework in providing a community-level view of plant domestication and its impact on plant-microbe interactions. We also propose simple experiments that could be performed to investigate whether plant domestication has altered the potential for community selection at the holobiont level.

Safeguarding Imperiled Biodiversity and Evolutionary Processes in the Wallacea Center of Endemism.

Wallacea-the meeting point between the Asian and Australian fauna-is one of the world's largest centers of endemism. Twenty-three million years of complex geological history have given rise to a living laboratory for the study of evolution and biodiversity, highly vulnerable to anthropogenic pressures. In the present article, we review the historic and contemporary processes shaping Wallacea's biodiversity and explore ways to conserve its unique ecosystems. Although remoteness has spared many Wallacean islands from the severe overexploitation that characterizes many tropical regions, industrial-scale expansion of agriculture, mining, aquaculture and fisheries is damaging terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, denuding endemics from communities, and threatening a long-term legacy of impoverished human populations. An impending biodiversity catastrophe demands collaborative actions to improve community-based management, minimize environmental impacts, monitor threatened species, and reduce wildlife trade. Securing a positive future for Wallacea's imperiled ecosystems requires a fundamental shift away from managing marine and terrestrial realms independently.

Aridity modulates belowground bacterial community dynamics in olive tree.

Aridity negatively affects the diversity and abundance of edaphic microbial communities and their multiple ecosystem services, ultimately impacting vegetation productivity and biotic interactions. Investigation about how plant-associated microbial communities respond to increasing aridity is of particular importance, especially in light of the global climate change predictions. To assess the effect of aridity on plant associated bacterial communities, we investigated the diversity and co-occurrence of bacteria associated with the bulk soil and the root system of olive trees cultivated in orchards located in higher, middle and lower arid regions of Tunisia. The results indicated that the selective process mediated by the plant root system is amplified with the increment of aridity, defining distinct bacterial communities, dominated by aridity-winner and aridity-loser bacteria negatively and positively correlated with increasing annual rainfall, respectively. Aridity regulated also the co-occurrence interactions among bacteria by determining specific modules enriched with one of the two categories (aridity-winners or aridity-losers), which included bacteria with multiple PGP functions against aridity. Our findings provide new insights into the process of bacterial assembly and interactions with the host plant in response to aridity, contributing to understand how the increasing aridity predicted by climate changes may affect the resilience of the plant holobiont.

Developmental stages and gut microenvironments influence gut microbiota dynamics in the invasive beetle Popillia japonica Newman (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae).

Popillia japonica Newman (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) is a highly polyphagous invasive beetle originating from Japan. This insect is highly resilient and able to rapidly adapt to new vegetation. Insect-associated microorganisms can play important roles in insect physiology, helping their hosts to adapt to changing conditions and potentially contributing to an insect's invasive potential. Such symbiotic bacteria can be part of a core microbiota that is stably transmitted throughout the host's life cycle or selectively recruited from the environment at each developmental stage. The aim of this study was to investigate the origin, stability and turnover of the bacterial communities associated with an invasive population of P. japonica from Italy. Our results demonstrate that soil microbes represent an important source of gut bacteria for P. japonica larvae, but as the insect develops, its gut microbiota richness and diversity decreased substantially, paralleled by changes in community composition. Notably, only 16.75% of the soil bacteria present in larvae are maintained until the adult stage. We further identified the micro-environments of different gut sections as an important factor shaping microbiota composition in this species, likely due to differences in pH, oxygen availability and redox potential. In addition, P. japonica also harboured a stable bacterial community across all developmental stages, consisting of taxa well known for the degradation of plant material, namely the families Ruminococcacae, Christensenellaceae and Lachnospiraceae. Interestingly, the family Christensenallaceae had so far been observed exclusively in humans. However, the Christensenellaceae operational taxonomic units found in P. japonica belong to different taxonomic clades within this family.

Interference competition as a key determinant for spatial distribution of mangrove crabs.

BACKGROUND: The spatial distribution of mangrove crabs has been commonly associated with tree zonation and abiotic factors such as ground temperature and soil granulometry. Conversely, no studies were designed to investigate the role of competition for resources and predation in shaping crab distribution in mangroves, despite these biotic factors are recognised as key determinants for spatial patterns observed in the communities colonising rocky and sandy intertidal habitats.We studied floral and faunal assemblages in two zones of a Sri Lankan mangrove, a man-made upper intertidal level and a natural eulittoral, mid-shore one. Leaf choice experiments were designed to study both feeding rate and intra and inter-specific interactions for food of sesarmid crabs in the two habitats in order to better understand crab spatial distribution. RESULTS: The two intertidal belts differed in terms of floral composition and crab species abundance. The eulittoral zone was strongly dominated by Neosarmatium smithi, while within the elevated littoral fringe four sesarmids (N. smithi, N. asiaticum, N. malabaricum and Muradium tetragonum) were more evenly distributed. At both levels, all sesarmids showed to collect significantly more Bruguiera spp. and Rhizophora apiculata leaves than Excoecaria agallocha ones. There was no temporal segregation in feeding activity among the four species, resulting in a high interference competition for leaves. Regardless of the habitat, N. smithi was always successful in winning inter-specific fights. CONCLUSIONS: Our results showed that the elevated littoral fringe was more crowded with crabs, but was less favourable in terms of food availability and environmental conditions. The dominance of N. smithi in gathering mangrove leaves suggests that this species may segregate the other sesarmids into less favourable habitats. The present data strongly suggest for the first time that interference competition for food can contribute to shape mangrove crab spatial distribution.

Contrasting environments shape thermal physiology across the spatial range of the sandhopper Talorchestia capensis.

Integrating thermal physiology and species range extent can contribute to a better understanding of the likely effects of climate change on natural populations. Generally, broadly distributed species show variation in thermal physiology between populations. Within their distributional ranges, populations at the edges are assumed to experience more challenging environments than central populations (fundamental niche breadth hypothesis). We have investigated differences in thermal tolerance and thermal sensitivity under increasing/decreasing temperatures among geographically separated populations of the sandhopper Talorchestia capensis along the South African coasts. We tested whether the thermal tolerance and thermal sensitivity of T. capensis differ between central and marginal populations using a non-parametric constraint space analysis. We linked thermal sensitivity to environmental history by using historical climatic data to evaluate whether individual responses to temperature could be related to natural long-term fluctuations in air temperatures. Our results demonstrate that there were significant differences in the thermal response of T. capensis populations to both increasing/decreasing temperatures. Thermal sensitivity (for increasing temperatures only) was negatively related to temperature variability and positively related to temperature predictability. Two different models fitted the geographical distribution of thermal sensitivity and thermal tolerance. Our results confirm that widespread species show differences in physiology among populations by providing evidence of contrasting thermal responses in individuals subject to different environmental conditions at the limits of the species' spatial range. When considering the complex interactions between individual physiology and species ranges, it is not sufficient to consider mean environmental temperatures, or even temperature variability; the predictability of that variability may be critical.

Improved heat tolerance in air drives the recurrent evolution of air-breathing.

The transition to air-breathing by formerly aquatic species has occurred repeatedly and independently in fish, crabs and other animal phyla, but the proximate drivers of this key innovation remain a long-standing puzzle in evolutionary biology. Most studies attribute the onset of air-breathing to the repeated occurrence of aquatic hypoxia; however, this hypothesis leaves the current geographical distribution of the 300 genera of air-breathing crabs unexplained. Here, we show that their occurrence is mainly related to high environmental temperatures in the tropics. We also demonstrate in an amphibious crab that the reduced cost of oxygen supply in air extends aerobic performance to higher temperatures and thus widens the animal's thermal niche. These findings suggest that high water temperature as a driver consistently explains the numerous times air-breathing has evolved. The data also indicate a central role for oxygen- and capacity-limited thermal tolerance not only in shaping sensitivity to current climate change but also in underpinning the climate-dependent evolution of animals, in this case the evolution of air-breathing.

Effects of catchment land use on temperate mangrove forests.

Human land use changes are threatening the integrity and health of coastal ecosystems worldwide. Intensified land use for anthropogenic purposes increases sedimentation rates, pollutants, and nutrient concentrations into adjacent coastal areas, often with detrimental effects on marine life and ecosystem functioning. However, how these factors interact to influence ecosystem health in mangrove forests is poorly understood. This study investigates the effects of catchment human land use on mangrove forest architecture and sedimentary attributes at a landscape-scale. Thirty sites were selected along a gradient of human land use within a narrow latitudinal range, to minimise the effects of varying climatic conditions. Land use was quantified using spatial analysis tools with existing land use databases (LCDB5). Twenty-six forest architectural and sedimentary variables were collected from each site. The results revealed a significant effect of human land use on ten out of 26 environmental variables. Eutrophication, characterised by changes in redox potential, pH, and sediment nutrient concentrations, was strongly associated with increasing human land use. The δ15N values of sediments and leaves also indicated increased anthropogenic nitrogen input. Furthermore, the study identified a positive correlation between human land use and tree density, indicating that increased nutrient delivery from catchments contributes to enhanced mangrove growth. Propagule and seedling densities were also positively correlated with human land use, suggesting potential recruitment success mechanisms. This research underpins the complex interactions between human land use and mangrove ecosystems, revealing changes in carbon dynamics, potential alterations in ecosystem services, and a need for holistic management approaches that consider the interconnectedness of species and their environment. These findings provide essential insights for regional ecosystem models, coastal management, and restoration strategies to address the impacts of human pressures on temperate mangrove forests, even in estuaries that may be relatively healthy.

Consistent effects of independent domestication events on the plant microbiota.

The effect of plant domestication on plant-microbe interactions remains difficult to prove. In this study, we provide evidence of a domestication effect on the composition and abundance of the plant microbiota. We focused on the genus Phaseolus, which underwent four independent domestication events within two species (P. vulgaris and P. lunatus), providing multiple replicates of a process spanning thousands of years. We targeted Phaseolus seeds to identify a link between domesticated traits and bacterial community composition as Phaseolus seeds have been subject to large and consistent phenotypic changes during these independent domestication events. The seed bacterial communities of representative plant accessions from subpopulations descended from each domestication event were analyzed under controlled and field conditions. The results showed that independent domestication events led to similar seed bacterial community signatures in independently domesticated plant populations, which could be partially explained by selection for common domesticated plant phenotypes. Our results therefore provide evidence of a consistent effect of plant domestication on seed microbial community composition and abundance and offer avenues for applying knowledge of the impact of plant domestication on the plant microbiota to improve microbial applications in agriculture.

The microbial landscape in bioturbated mangrove sediment: A resource for promoting nature-based solutions for mangroves.

Globally, soils and sediments are affected by the bioturbation activities of benthic species. The consequences of these activities are particularly impactful in intertidal sediment, which is generally anoxic and nutrient-poor. Mangrove intertidal sediments are of particular interest because, as the most productive forests and one of the most important stores of blue carbon, they provide global-scale ecosystem services. The mangrove sediment microbiome is fundamental for ecosystem functioning, influencing the efficiency of nutrient cycling and the abundance and distribution of key biological elements. Redox reactions in bioturbated sediment can be extremely complex, with one reaction creating a cascade effect on the succession of respiration pathways. This facilitates the overlap of different respiratory metabolisms important in the element cycles of the mangrove sediment, including carbon, nitrogen, sulphur and iron cycles, among others. Considering that all ecological functions and services provided by mangrove environments involve microorganisms, this work reviews the microbial roles in nutrient cycling in relation to bioturbation by animals and plants, the main mangrove ecosystem engineers. We highlight the diversity of bioturbating organisms and explore the diversity, dynamics and functions of the sediment microbiome, considering both the impacts of bioturbation. Finally, we review the growing evidence that bioturbation, through altering the sediment microbiome and environment, determining a 'halo effect', can ameliorate conditions for plant growth, highlighting the potential of the mangrove microbiome as a nature-based solution to sustain mangrove development and support the role of this ecosystem to deliver essential ecological services.

The identification of the new species Nitratireductor thuwali sp. nov. reveals the untapped diversity of hydrocarbon-degrading culturable bacteria from the arid mangrove sediments of the Red Sea.

Introduction: The geological isolation, lack of freshwater inputs and specific internal water circulations make the Red Sea one of the most extreme-and unique-oceans on the planet. Its high temperature, salinity and oligotrophy, along with the consistent input of hydrocarbons due to its geology (e.g., deep-sea vents) and high oil tankers traffic, create the conditions that can drive and influence the assembly of unique marine (micro)biomes that evolved to cope with these multiple stressors. We hypothesize that mangrove sediments, as a model-specific marine environment of the Red Sea, act as microbial hotspots/reservoirs of such diversity not yet explored and described. Methods: To test our hypothesis, we combined oligotrophic media to mimic the Red Sea conditions and hydrocarbons as C-source (i.e., crude oil) with long incubation time to allow the cultivation of slow-growing environmentally (rare or uncommon) relevant bacteria. Results and discussion: This approach reveals the vast diversity of taxonomically novel microbial hydrocarbon degraders within a collection of a few hundred isolates. Among these isolates, we characterized a novel species, Nitratireductor thuwali sp. nov., namely, Nit1536T. It is an aerobic, heterotrophic, Gram-stain-negative bacterium with optimum growth at 37°C, 8 pH and 4% NaCl, whose genome and physiological analysis confirmed the adaptation to extreme and oligotrophic conditions of the Red Sea mangrove sediments. For instance, Nit1536T metabolizes different carbon substrates, including straight-chain alkanes and organic acids, and synthesizes compatible solutes to survive in salty mangrove sediments. Our results showed that the Red Sea represent a source of yet unknown novel hydrocarbon degraders adapted to extreme marine conditions, and their discovery and characterization deserve further effort to unlock their biotechnological potential.

Gill-associated bacteria are homogeneously selected in amphibious mangrove crabs to sustain host intertidal adaptation.

BACKGROUND: The transition from water to air is a key event in the evolution of many marine organisms to access new food sources, escape water hypoxia, and exploit the higher and temperature-independent oxygen concentration of air. Despite the importance of microorganisms in host adaptation, their contribution to overcoming the challenges posed by the lifestyle changes from water to land is not well understood. To address this, we examined how microbial association with a key multifunctional organ, the gill, is involved in the intertidal adaptation of fiddler crabs, a dual-breathing organism. RESULTS: Electron microscopy revealed a rod-shaped bacterial layer tightly connected to the gill lamellae of the five crab species sampled across a latitudinal gradient from the central Red Sea to the southern Indian Ocean. The gill bacterial community diversity assessed with 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing was consistently low across crab species, and the same actinobacterial group, namely Ilumatobacter, was dominant regardless of the geographic location of the host. Using metagenomics and metatranscriptomics, we detected that these members of actinobacteria are potentially able to convert ammonia to amino acids and may help eliminate toxic sulphur compounds and carbon monoxide to which crabs are constantly exposed. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that bacteria selected on gills can play a role in the adaptation of animals in dynamic intertidal ecosystems. Hence, this relationship is likely to be important in the ecological and evolutionary processes of the transition from water to air and deserves further attention, including the ontogenetic onset of this association. Video Abstract.

Enzyme adaptation to habitat thermal legacy shapes the thermal plasticity of marine microbiomes.

Microbial communities respond to temperature with physiological adaptation and compositional turnover. Whether thermal selection of enzymes explains marine microbiome plasticity in response to temperature remains unresolved. By quantifying the thermal behaviour of seven functionally-independent enzyme classes (esterase, extradiol dioxygenase, phosphatase, beta-galactosidase, nuclease, transaminase, and aldo-keto reductase) in native proteomes of marine sediment microbiomes from the Irish Sea to the southern Red Sea, we record a significant effect of the mean annual temperature (MAT) on enzyme response in all cases. Activity and stability profiles of 228 esterases and 5 extradiol dioxygenases from sediment and seawater across 70 locations worldwide validate this thermal pattern. Modelling the esterase phase transition temperature as a measure of structural flexibility confirms the observed relationship with MAT. Furthermore, when considering temperature variability in sites with non-significantly different MATs, the broadest range of enzyme thermal behaviour and the highest growth plasticity of the enriched heterotrophic bacteria occur in samples with the widest annual thermal variability. These results indicate that temperature-driven enzyme selection shapes microbiome thermal plasticity and that thermal variability finely tunes such processes and should be considered alongside MAT in forecasting microbial community thermal response.

Destabilization of the Bacterial Interactome Identifies Nutrient Restriction-Induced Dysbiosis in Insect Guts.

Stress-associated dysbiosis of microbiome can have several configurations that, under an energy landscape conceptual framework, can change from one configuration to another due to different alternating selective forces. It has been proposed-according to the Anna Karenina Principle-that in stressed individuals the microbiome are more dispersed (i.e., with a higher within-beta diversity), evidencing the grade of dispersion as indicator of microbiome dysbiosis. We hypothesize that although dysbiosis leads to different microbial communities in terms of beta diversity, these are not necessarily differently dispersed (within-beta diversity), but they form disrupted networks that make them less resilient to stress. To test our hypothesis, we select nutrient restriction (NR) stress that impairs host fitness but does not introduce overt microbiome selectors, such as toxic compounds and pathogens. We fed the polyphagous black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens, with two NR diets and a control full-nutrient (FN) diet. NR diets were dysbiotic because they strongly affected insect growth and development, inducing significant microscale changes in physiochemical conditions of the gut compartments. NR diets established new configurations of the gut microbiome compared to FN-fed guts but with similar dispersion. However, these new configurations driven by the deterministic changes induced by NR diets were reflected in rarefied, less structured, and less connected bacterial interactomes. These results suggested that while the dispersion cannot be considered a consistent indicator of the unhealthy state of dysbiotic microbiomes, the capacity of the community members to maintain network connections and stability can be an indicator of the microbial dysbiotic conditions and their incapacity to sustain the holobiont resilience and host homeostasis. IMPORTANCE Changes in diet play a role in reshaping the gut microbiome in animals, inducing dysbiotic configurations of the associated microbiome. Although studies have reported on the effects of specific nutrient contents on the diet, studies regarding the conditions altering the microbiome configurations and networking in response to diet changes are limited. Our results showed that nutrient poor diets determine dysbiotic states of the host with reduction of insect weight and size, and increase of the times for developmental stage. Moreover, the poor nutrient diets lead to changes in the compositional diversity and network interaction properties of the gut microbial communities. Our study adds a new component to the understanding of the ecological processes associated with dysbiosis, by disentangling consequences of diets on microbiome dysbiosis that is manifested with the disruption of microbiome networking properties rather than changes in microbiome dispersion and beta diversity.

Morphological characteristics and abundance of prokaryotes associated with gills in mangrove brachyuran crabs living along a tidal gradient.

Due to the chemico-physical differences between air and water, the transition from aquatic life to the land poses several challenges for animal evolution, necessitating morphological, physiological and behavioural adaptations. Microbial symbiosis is known to have played an important role in eukaryote evolution, favouring host adaptation under changing environmental conditions. We selected mangrove brachyuran crabs as a model group to investigate the prokaryotes associated with the gill of crabs dwelling at different tidal levels (subtidal, intertidal and supratidal). In these animals, the gill undergoes a high selective pressure, finely regulating multiple physiological functions during both animal submersion under and emersion from the periodical tidal events. We hypothesize that similarly to other marine animals, the gills of tidal crabs are consistently colonized by prokaryotes that may quantitatively change along the environmental gradient driven by the tides. Using electron microscopy techniques, we found a thick layer of prokaryotes over the gill surfaces of all of 12 crab species from the mangrove forests of Saudi Arabia, Kenya and South Africa. We consistently observed two distinct morphotypes (rod- and spherical-shaped), positioned horizontally and/or perpendicularly to the gill surface. The presence of replicating cells indicated that the prokaryote layer is actively growing on the gill surface. Quantitative analysis of scanning electron microscopy images and the quantification of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene by qPCR revealed a higher specific abundance of prokaryote cells per gill surface area in the subtidal species than those living in the supratidal zone. Our results revealed a correlation between prokaryote colonization of the gill surfaces and the host lifestyle. This finding indicates a possible role of prokaryote partnership within the crab gills, with potential effects on animal adaptation to different levels of the intertidal gradient present in the mangrove ecosystem.

The plant rhizosheath-root niche is an edaphic "mini-oasis" in hyperarid deserts with enhanced microbial competition.

Plants have evolved unique morphological and developmental adaptations to cope with the abiotic stresses imposed by (hyper)arid environments. Such adaptations include the formation of rhizosheath-root system in which mutualistic plant-soil microbiome associations are established: the plant provides a nutrient-rich and shielded environment to microorganisms, which in return improve plant-fitness through plant growth promoting services. We hypothesized that the rhizosheath-root systems represent refuge niches and resource islands for the desert edaphic microbial communities. As a corollary, we posited that microorganisms compete intensively to colonize such "oasis" and only those beneficial microorganisms improving host fitness are preferentially selected by plant. Our results show that the belowground rhizosheath-root micro-environment is largely more hospitable than the surrounding gravel plain soil with higher nutrient and humidity contents, and cooler temperatures. By combining metabarcoding and shotgun metagenomics, we demonstrated that edaphic microbial biomass and community stability increased from the non-vegetated soils to the rhizosheath-root system. Concomitantly, non-vegetated soil communities favored autotrophy lifestyle while those associated with the plant niches were mainly heterotrophs and enriched in microbial plant growth promoting capacities. An intense inter-taxon microbial competition is involved in the colonization and homeostasis of the rhizosheath zone, as documented by significant enrichment of antibiotic resistance genes and CRISPR-Cas motifs. Altogether, our results demonstrate that rhizosheath-root systems are "edaphic mini-oases" and microbial diversity hotspots in hyperarid deserts. However, to colonize such refuge niches, the desert soil microorganisms compete intensively and are therefore prepared to outcompete potential rivals.