Abstract:

The Deepwater Horizon disaster of April 2010 was the largest oil spill in U.S. history and had catastrophic effects on several ecologically important fish species in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). This study tested the hypotheses that exposure to weathered oil would cause significant shifts in fish gut-associated microbial communities with taxa known for hydrocarbon degradation increasing in abundance and that foraging behavior would decrease, potentially due to microbial dysbiosis via the gut-brain axis. The gut microbiome (16S rRNA) of a native GoM estuarine species, the sheepshead minnow (Cyprinodon variegatus) was characterized. Fish were exposed to oil in High Energy Water Accommodated Fractions (HEWAF; tPAH = 80.99 ± 12.5 μg/L) over a 7-day period and whole gastrointestinal tracts were sampled for microbiome analyses. A foraging behavioral assay was used to determine feeding efficiency before and after oil exposure. The fish gut microbiome did not experience any significant changes in alpha or beta diversity, yet the gut selected some microbes from the environment, resulting in a less diverse community than the water environment.

Suggested Citation:

Wigren, Maggie. 2020. Microbiome and foraging data from sheepshead minnows (Cyprinodon variegatus) after exposure to oil. Distributed by: GRIIDC, Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. doi:10.7266/ZN48H6GT

Purpose:

The reason this study was conducted was to test the hypotheses that exposure to weathered oil would cause major shifts in fish gut-associated microbial communities with taxa known for hydrocarbon degradation increasing in abundance and that foraging behavior would decrease, potentially due to microbial dysbiosis via the gut-brain axis.

Data Parameters and Units:

This dataset contains all raw water quality data, PAH data from GC-MS and fluorescence spectroscopy, feeding behavior data, fish metadata (weights/lengths), as well as the raw 16S fastq files. Water quality: Temperature (C), Salinity (ppm), pH, Dissolved Oxygen (mg/L), Ammonia/Nitrate/Nitrites (mg/L) Fish Metadata: body mass (g), body length (mm), total DNA yield (ng/ul), DNA purity 260/280 ratio (nm) PAH Data: raw fluorescence readings (full-scale units), PAH analytes (ug/L), tPAH (ug/L), HEWAF dose (g/L)

Methods:

Oil residues were administered via HEWAF emulsions, and PAHs were quantified using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and estimates from fluorescence spectroscopy. Behavior data were visually counted as the number of prey captures out of 10 possible captures. Microbiome data was obtained from the whole gastrointestinal tract of the fish, including digesta, where DNA was extracted and samples were sent for sequencing on the Illumina MiSeq platform.

Instruments:

Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS); Illumina MiSeq platform

Individual Files: