Presenters: Emily Burns
Authors: Emily Burns, MaKella Steffensen, Roger Gold
Faculty Advisor: Roger Gold
Institution: Southern Utah University
Sanguivorous leeches, those that feed on the blood of vertebrate organisms, maintain a symbiotic relationship with bacteria of the genus, Aeromonas(Graf, 1999). Within the leech, these bacteria help digest blood and provide essential nutrients to the host (Indergrand & Graf, 2000). However, very little research has been published on the gut microbiomes of non-sanguivorous leeches, with some researchers even suggesting that these species lack any microbiome (Perkins et al., 2005). Therefore, we investigated the gut microbiome of the freshwater leech, Helobdella modesta, to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their complex host-symbiont relationships. Using Illumina sequencing techniques and Mothur analysis we surveyed the diversity and abundance of symbiotic gut bacteria. Alpha and beta diversity were calculated; sequences were grouped by Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs), percent relative abundance for all taxa levels were calculated, and BLAST searches were performed.