First look at microbiome composition among the Jaera albifrons species complex, an emerging model system for sympatric speciation.
A microbiome study from Marius Wenzel's post-doctoral research prior to joining the CGEBM has now been published in PLoS ONE. This study characterised the microbiomes of a set of closely related marine isopod species with the aim of identifying the presence of sex-ratio distorting reproductive parasites (such as Wolbachia) and explore whether microbiome structure may be linked to eco-evolutionary processes in this species complex.
There was very little evidence of reproductive parasites, but overall microbiome structure was associated with sex and to a much greater extent by geography and time of year. The results highlight how microbiome composition may strongly be affected by environmental factors, but also provide a first look at how Jaera reproductive biology may be associated with microbe assemblages.
The full publication is available from PLoS ONE.
More information of Marius's research activities can be found on his ORCID and University staff pages.
Marius joined the CGEBM as a bioinformatician in June 2018 and provides expertise in genomics and transcriptomics in non-model systems.