PhD Studentships: Can the gut microbiome support fish health? Chris Payne

Chris Payne

Stirling University (supervisors: Mags Crumlish and Simon Mackenzie) 2016-19

Can the gut microbiome support fish health?

The intestinal environment of vertebrate animals is colonised by a complex microbial community, termed the microbiome. In fish, this community is extremely diverse and made up of more than one trillion bacteria/g of intestinal contents. Recent meta-analysis has revealed that many fish species share a core gut microbiome community comprised of five key bacterial phyla: Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria and Fusobacteria. Furthermore, members within this core microbiome are thought to have been selected throughout evolution to play vital roles in promoting and maintaining their host’s physiology and health status.

My PhD focuses on how this microbial community can support fish health through microbially-mediated gut functions. To investigate this, I am using next generation sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene, to profile the microbiome communities in different farmed fish species and explore how certain husbandry practices can influence these communities and their mediated functions within the fish host. In particular, my research will i) explore how antibiotic compounds influence the microbiome communities in different farmed fish and ii) investigate how manipulated microbiome communities impact on gut health in the fish host as measured by changes in immunity, metabolism and gut function.

Overall this project aims to improve our understanding of the core microbiome community composition in different fish species and help support the development of novel husbandry methods to improve the resilience of farmed fish. Data obtained from this project will be essential to the global aquaculture industry on multiple platforms – more critically addressing current attempts to reduce or find alternatives to antibiotic use in fish farming.

For further information please contact:
Institute of Aquaculture,
University of Stirling,
Stirling
FK9 4LA

Email: c.j.payne1@stir.ac.uk

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