ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Fisheries, Aquaculture and Living Resources
This article is part of the Research TopicEcological Safety and One Health in AquacultureView all 6 articles
Probiotics reshape microbial community assembly and functional stability in mud crab (Scylla paramamosain) larvae under high-temperature stress
Provisionally accepted
- 1Zhejiang Mariculture Research Institute, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, China
- 2Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
- 3Anhui Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hefei, China
- 4Zhejiang Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Zhoushan, China
- 5Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences East China Sea Fishery Research Institute, Yangpu, China
- 6Zhejiang Mariculture Research Institute, Wenzhou, China
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High-temperature stress poses a major challenge to sustainable mud crab (Scylla paramamosain) aquaculture by disrupting microbiome stability and increasing larval mortality, whereas probiotic supplementation may help maintain microbial balance and enhance thermal resilience. To elucidate how probiotics influence microbial community dynamics and functional assembly under heat stress, we compared probiotics (Lactobacillus, LAC) and antibiotic (ANT) treatments with a control (CK) across larval stages Zoea I–IV (Z1–Z4). Microbial diversity, community structure, and functional assembly were characterized using 16S rRNA gene sequencing integrated with ecological and network-based analyses to elucidate community dynamics and assembly processes. Results revealed stage-specific shifts in microbiome structure, with LAC supplementation significantly reducing diversity at Z4 but maintaining higher temporal stability than CK and ANT. Network analysis showed that LAC reshaped microbial co-occurrence patterns, lowering modularity and increasing negative correlations, whereas ANT produced a more modular and less integrated network. Neutral model fitting based on PICRUSt2-predicted KEGG orthologs indicated that deterministic processes predominated in functional assembly, with LAC enriching carbohydrate-and amino acid–related metabolism and ANT enhancing stress-and antibiotic-associated pathways. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that LAB supplementation modulates microbial ecology under thermal stress, enhancing functional stability and larval resilience, and provide a mechanistic basis for developing temperature-resilient aquaculture strategies for S. paramamosain.
Keywords: co-occurrenceNetwork, Functional assembly, High-temperature stress, keystone taxa, larval development, microbial community, Probiotics, Scylla paramamosain
Received: 11 Nov 2025; Accepted: 17 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yu, Li, Wang, Ling, Wang, Wang, Yin, Qiao and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Wei Wang
Chen Chen
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