Fish gut microecosystem: a model for detecting spatial pattern of microorganisms

The spatial distribution pattern of organisms is a basic issue in understanding the mechanisms of community assembly. Although the spatial distributions of animals and plants have been well studied, those of microorganisms are still being debated. In this study, we used a fish gut microecosystem to detect the spatial pattern of microbes, because it can provide a relatively unified and stable environment. Results suggest that the turnover of intestinal bacterial assemblages showed a weak but highly significant negative correlation between similarity and distances in the microbial community, in respect of both grass carp intestinal loci distances and the geographical distance between fish sampling sites. Our results also suggest that intestinal bacterial assemblages responded to differences within the external environment and within different parts of the fish themselves. These results show that some, or possibly all, microbes are restricted in their distribution and that environmental factors are also important influences on the structure of intestinal bacterial assemblages. The fish gut microecosystem is useful in promoting study of the spatial distribution patterns of microorganisms.