title: Intestinal microbiota in fishes: what's known and what's not.
abstract: High-throughput sequencing approaches have enabled characterizations of the community composition of numerous gut microbial communities, which in turn has enhanced interest in their diversity and functional relationships in different groups of vertebrates. Although fishes represent the greatest taxonomic and ecological diversity of vertebrates, our understanding of their gut microbiota and its functional significance has lagged well behind that of terrestrial vertebrates. In order to highlight emerging issues, we provide an overview of research on fish gut microbiotas and the biology of their hosts. We conclude that microbial community composition must be viewed within an informed context of host ecology and physiology, and that this is of particular importance with respect to research planning and sampling design.
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Kendall D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Clements
authors.forename: Esther R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Angert
authors.forename: W Linn
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Montgomery
authors.forename: J Howard
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Choat
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004063:Digestion; D005399:Fishes / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000502:physiology; D007422:Intestines / Q000382:microbiology*; D064307:Microbiota
keywords: 16S rRNA; gut bacteria; hindgut fermentation; intestine; microbial ecology; symbiosis