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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.

Sec. Microbial Symbioses

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1665547

This article is part of the Research TopicHarnessing Aquatic Microbial Symbioses for Sustainable Aquaculture: Unveiling Biodiversity and Ecosystem DynamicsView all articles

Characteristics of gut microbiota in Penaeus vannamei shifted with elevated salinity

Provisionally accepted
Bo  WangBo Wang1,2,3Yang  LiuYang Liu4Xinhua  WuXinhua Wu5Yunfei  LiuYunfei Liu5Ziying  LiZiying Li5Jian  WangJian Wang3,6Yingli  LianYingli Lian3,6Jiayi  TangJiayi Tang3,6Biao  YunBiao Yun3,6Xiangli  TianXiangli Tian4,7*
  • 1Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Research Center of Guangdong Haid Group Co., Ltd.Guangzhou 511400, PR China, Guangzhou, China
  • 2State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China
  • 3Key Laboratory of microecological resources and utilization in breeding industry, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Guangdong Haid Group Co., Ltd., Guangzhou 511400, PR China, Guangzhou, China
  • 4The Key Laboratory of Mariculture, Ocean University of China, Ministry of Education, Qingdao, China
  • 5Bohai Seafoods Co., Ltd., Binzhou, China
  • 6Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Research Center of Guangdong Haid Group Co., Ltd., Guangzhou 511400, PR China, Guangzhou, China
  • 7Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

An increasing number of studies have evaluated the effects of host, dietary, and environmental factors on the gut microbial community of Penaeus vannamei. However, the characteristics of the gut microbial community of this species in hypersaline aquaculture environments have not yet been clarified. Our findings demonstrate that salinity has a strong impact on the gut bacterial community of shrimp. The alpha diversity of the gut bacterial community of shrimp decreased with salinity. Significant differences in the composition and abundance of the core gut bacterial taxa were observed among ponds with varying salinity, and only 13 shared core operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were identified; the abundance of potential opportunistic pathogens decreased significantly in hypersaline environments. Salinity is identified as a critically important environmental factor affecting the structure of the gut bacterial community of shrimp in hypersaline environments. The structure of the gut bacterial community of shrimp was distinct at salinities of 31 - 39 and 47 - 55, and the predicted functions differed at salinities of 31 - 47 and 55 based on 16S rRNA gene prediction using PICRUSt2 and principal coordinate analysis. Network analysis showed that higher salinity was associated with less connectivity and cooperation among species. Neutral Community Model analysis and the normalized stochasticity ratio revealed that stochastic processes were dominant at lower salinity; however, deterministic processes became more important as salinity increased. In addition, the community-level habitat niche breadths of the gut bacterial community decreased with salinity, which further confirmed this trend. These findings provide new insights into the characteristics of the gut bacterial community of shrimp in hypersaline environments and would contribute to the improvement of farming health management of shrimp in hypersaline ponds aquaculture practices.

Keywords: Co-occurrence network, community assembly, gut bacterial community, Salinity, Penaeus vannamei

Received: 15 Jul 2025; Accepted: 03 Sep 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Liu, Wu, Liu, Li, Wang, Lian, Tang, Yun and Tian. 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: Xiangli Tian, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China

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