Growth variance and intestinal microbial diversity of Litopenaeus vannamei raised in high-nitrite environment

Abstract:

[Objective] Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) raised in high-nitrite environment tend to have different growth rates and body weights between individuals at the end of the culture period. This study aims to investigate the association between growth variance with intestinal microbiota structure of shrimps raised in a high-nitrite environment. [Methods] Intestinal contents and seawater samples were collected from rapidly growing, normally growing, and slowly growing shrimps raised in a high-nitrite pond for 16S rRNA gene sequencing and linear discriminant analysis effect size (LEfSe). [Results] The intestinal microbial diversity of the slowly growing shrimps was different from that of rapidly and normally growing shrimps. The principal coordinate analysis showed that the intestinal microbiota structure of the normally growing shrimps was more similar to that of the rapidly growing shrimps than to that of the slowly growing shrimps. The results of LEfSe revealed that Flammeovirgaceae, Flavobacteriaceae, and Planctomycetaceae had high abundance in the shrimps with rapid growth, while Desulfovibrionaceae, Shewanellaceae, and Vibrionaceae were significantly enriched in the shrimps with slow growth. [Conclusion] The difference in nitrogen metabolism capacity of intestinal microorganisms leads to the growth variance among shrimps in the high-nitrite environment. The findings provide new knowledge for the industrial farming of shrimps.