Bacterial Communities Associated With Penaeus vannamei Boone, 1931 Surface and Its Rearing Water in Biofloc Culture System

The biofloc system is an ecologically sustainable shrimp culture system. The conglomerates of beneficial bacteria, algae and protozoa in pond water serve as a water quality management system and as a feed additive to the shrimps. This study aimed to characterise the microbial communities associated with the biofloc pond water and the surface of Penaeus vannamei Boone, 1931, reared in it using the Illumina Miseq sequencing technology. The multiple alpha diversity measures indicated the shrimp surface samples to be richer in diversity than the pond water samples. Analysis of the bacterial community revealed that Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Planctomycetes and Cyanobacteria formed the principal phyla. There was a shift in the relative abundance of bacterial communities at each time point. The operational taxonomic units (OTU) analyses revealed that 18.38 % OTUs were shared by the pond water samples, the shrimp surface samples shared 29.35 % at the three different time points. PICRUST analysis revealed that the bacterial communities in the biofloc rearing water, and shrimp surface, were likely involved in intensive microbial metabolism and core housekeeping functions. The information generated will help understand the bacterial community composition associated with optimal water quality and shrimp health in a biofloc culture system.