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Characterizing the microbiome of Dujardinascaris helicina (Nematoda: Ascarididae) isolated from wild American crocodiles in Belize

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2025

C. Griffin Open the ORCID record for C. Griffin [Opens in a new window] ,
D. Dinh ,
D. Singletary ,
M. Tellez  and
H. Sung
C. Griffin*
Affiliation:
https://ror.org/01wspgy28 University of Hawaii at Manoa , Honolulu, Hawaii, USA University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
D. Dinh
Affiliation:
https://ror.org/01wspgy28 University of Hawaii at Manoa , Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
D. Singletary
Affiliation:
https://ror.org/01wspgy28 University of Hawaii at Manoa , Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
M. Tellez
Affiliation:
Crocodile Research Coalition, Maya Beach, Stann Creek, Belize
H. Sung
Affiliation:
https://ror.org/01wspgy28 University of Hawaii at Manoa , Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
*
Corresponding author: C. Griffin, Email: chaseng@hawaii.edu
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Abstract

Microbiomes are communities of microorganisms that form close associations with metazoan hosts and have important roles in host biological processes. With the advent of Next Generation Sequencing, the microbiomes of myriad animals and plants have been described. However, the microbiomes of parasites have received little attention, which is surprising considering their ecological and medical importance. This study characterizes, for the first time, the microbiome of Dujardinascaris helicina, a gastrointestinal nematode parasite of the American crocodile. Dujardinascaris helicina were isolated from crocodiles residing in two geographically separated habitats across Belize. Using 16S sequencing, we compare β-diversity between sampling locations using generalized linear mixed modeling. Our results show that D. helicina microbiomes differ in composition depending on location. We also show that D. helicina microbiomes show strong shifts toward consolidation of specific taxa when proximity to human modified environments increases.

Keywords

Dujardinascaris helicinamicrobiomebeta diversityecologygeneralized linear mixed modeling

Information

Type
Research Paper
Information
Journal of Helminthology , Volume 99 , 2025 , e73
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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