gut microbial community of Pomacea canaliculata
The gut microbiota of invasive species is increasingly recognized as critical for host adaptation, yet the assembly mechanisms, particularly the balance between stochastic and deterministic forces, remain poorly understood. Here, we characterized the gut microbial communities of 720 Pomacea canaliculata individuals from 16 sites across four Chinese provinces using 16S rRNA sequencing, integrating distance-decay models, null models, co occurrence networks, and distance based redundancy analysis. Our specific objectives were: (1) to characterize the biogeographic patterns of gut microbial diversity, community composition, co-occurrence network; (2) to quantify the relative contributions of deterministic and stochastic processes to community assembly using phylogenetic null model approaches; and (3) to assess the multi-level influence of environmental factors on community composition, function, network properties, and assembly processes.