Genomics of Serrasalmidae teleosts through the lens of microbiome fingerprinting

Associations between host genotype and host-associated microbiomes have been shown in a variety of animal clades, but studies on teleosts mostly show weak associations. Our study aimed to explore these relationships in four sympatric Serrasalmidae (i.e., piranha) teleosts from an Amazonian lake, using data sets from the hosts genomes (single nucleotide polymorphisms from genotyping by sequencing), skin and gut microbiomes (16S rRNA gene metataxonomics) and diets (COI metabarcoding) from the same fish individuals. First, we investigated whether there were significant covariations of microbiome and fish genotypes at the inter- and intraspecific levels. We also assessed the extent of covariation between Serrasalmidae diet and microbiome, to isolate genotypic from dietary effects on community structure. We observed a significant covariation of skin microbiomes and host genotypes at interspecific (R²  = 24.4%) and intraspecific (R²  = 6.2%) levels, whereas gut microbiomes correlated poorly with host genotypes. Serrasalmidae diet composition was significantly correlated to fish genotype only at the interspecific level (R²  = 5.4%), but did not covary with gut microbiome composition (Mantel R = -.04). Second, we investigated whether the study of interspecific differentiation could benefit from considering host-associated microbial communities in addition to host genotypes. By using a nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) ordination-based approach, we observed that ordinations from skin- and gut species-specific bacterial biomarkers identified through a random forest algorithm could significantly increase the average interspecific differentiation detected through host genotype data alone. Although future studies encompassing additional species and environments are needed, our results suggest Serrasalmidae microbiomes could constitute an insightful trait to be considered when studying the interspecific differences between members of this clade.