RHODE ISLAND: EPSCoR researchers study the symbiotic relationships between oysters and bacteria living in their gut microbiome

Living in shallow, brackish waterways like the state’s southern salt ponds, the Eastern or Atlantic oyster, Crassostrea virginica, provides habitats for other species and, as a filter feeder, serves as a natural indicator of a marine environment’s water quality.

After months in the lab, extracting and sequencing DNA of a bacteria living in the gut of the Eastern oyster, Rhode Island EPSCoR’s Zachary Pimentel faced a big problem: he couldn’t find any trace of the bacteria. Pimentel belongs to a group of researchers at the University of Rhode Island and Roger Williams University investigating how certain bacteria operate in the Eastern oyster’s gut microbiome, knowledge of which helps the scientific community better understand how such bacteria impact its host’s overall health.