Interspecies bacterial competition regulates community assembly in the C. elegans intestine.

ABSTRACT: From insects to mammals, a large variety of animals hold in their intestines complex bacterial communities that play an important role in health and disease. To further our understanding of how intestinal bacterial communities assemble and function, we study the C. elegans microbiota with a bottom-up approach by feeding this nematode with bacterial monocultures as well as mixtures of two to eight bacterial species. We find that bacteria colonizing well in monoculture do not always do well in co-cultures due to interspecies bacterial interactions. Moreover, as community diversity increases, the ability to colonize the worm gut in monoculture becomes less important than interspecies interactions for determining community assembly. To explore the role of host-microbe adaptation, we compare ba

SUBMITTER: Ortiz A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8245486 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature