The Microbiota of Moon Snail Egg Collars is Shaped by Host-Specific Factors.

Animals commonly partner with microorganisms to accomplish essential tasks, including chemically defending the animal host from predation and/or infections. Understanding animal-microbe partnerships and the molecules used by the microbe to defend the animals from pathogens or predation have the potential to lead to new pharmaceutical agents. However, very few of these systems have been investigated. A particularly interesting system are nutrient rich marine egg collars, which often lack visible protections, and are hypothesized to harbor beneficial microbes that protect the eggs. In this study, we gained an understanding of the bacterial strains that form the core microbiota of Moon Snail egg collars and gained a preliminary understanding of their natural product potential. This work lays the foundation for future work to understand the ecological role of the core microbiome and to study the molecules involved in chemically defending the Moon Snail eggs.