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Ecological filtering drives rapid spatiotemporal dynamics in fish skin microbiomes
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  • Hanna Berggren,
  • Yeşerin Yıldırım,
  • Oscar Nordahl,
  • Per Larsson,
  • Mark Dopson,
  • Daniel Lundin,
  • Petter Tibblin,
  • Jarone Pinhassi,
  • Anders Forsman
Hanna Berggren
Linnaeus University

Corresponding Author:hanna.berggren@lnu.se

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Yeşerin Yıldırım
Linneuniversitet - Vaxjo
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Oscar Nordahl
Linnaeus University
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Per Larsson
Linnaeus University
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Mark Dopson
Linnaeus University
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Daniel Lundin
Linnaeus University
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Petter Tibblin
Linnaeus University
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Jarone Pinhassi
Linnaeus University
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Anders Forsman
Linnaeus University
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Abstract

Skin microbiomes provide vital functions, yet knowledge about their species assemblages is limited - especially for non-model organisms. In this study, we conducted in situ manipulations and repeated sampling on wild-caught individuals of Rutilus rutilus. Treatments included translocation between fresh and brackish water habitats to investigate the role of environment; community rebooting by disinfection to infer host-microbe interactions; and housing in pairs to study the role of inter-host dispersal for the structure of microbiomes colonizing animals. Results revealed that fish skin microbiomes were biodiversity hotspots with highly dynamic composition that were distinct from bacterioplankton communities. External environmental conditions and individual-specific factors jointly determined the colonization-extinction dynamics, whereas inter-host dispersal had negligible effects. The dynamics of the microbiome composition was seemingly non-affected by reboot treatment, pointing to high resilience to disturbance in these microbial communities. Together, the manipulations demonstrate that host individual characteristics and environment interactively shapes the skin microbiome of fish. The results emphasize the role of inter-individual variability for the unexplained variation found in many host-microbiome systems, although the mechanistic underpinnings remain to be identified.