Microbial Ecology

The microbiome of fish can be transient (only passes through, highly dependent on the external environment) or resident (indigenous microbial flora which does not depend as much on fluctuations in the external environment). The changing of the seasons will greatly affect the physiology of the fish, especially when winter arrives and the animals are stuck under a layer of ice, without access to food. It is therefore possible that the resident microbiota changes with the seasons, and helps the animal to survive winter conditions.

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Our study therefore focuses on the variation in diversity and the structure of the bacterial communities that make up the resident microbiome in the Salvelinus namaycush trout. The fish used for this study were collected during the four seasons in a lake in the Laurentians. Each digestive system was dissected according to the organ, following the inflow of food: stomach, cecum and intestine, in order to add a spatial dimension to the study.

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Project led by Pascale Savard (undergraduate alumni)

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Collaboration: Prof. Bailey McMeans (University of Toronto)