Involvement of dietary salt in shaping bacterial communities in European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax)

Bacteria associated with the digestive tract of multicellular organisms have been shown to play a major role in their hosts' functioning. In fish, it has been proposed that food fermentation occurs inside the pyloric ceca, pouch like organs found in their digestive tract. However, this notion remains controversial. Furthermore, changes in pyloric cecal bacterial populations under different diets have yet to be demonstrated in fish. In this study, we explore the changes occurring in the bacterial community residing in the pyloric ceca of carnivorous fish fed different diets, which were shown to induce different growth rates. Our results revealed that different diets do indeed induce distinct bacterial compositions within the pyloric ceca. We found that, when salt was added to a low fish meal diet, the bacterial changes were accompanied by a significant enhancement in weight gain, hinting at a possible involvement of the bacterial community in energy harvest.