Abstract
Anchialine caves house a vast variety of organisms that support complex ecological relationships among themselves and their environment. The following study was made in the anchialine karst cave El Aerolito, found on Cozumel Island, Quintana Roo, Mexico. It explores the relationship between wall microbial mats and the diet of Asterinides sp., an endemic stygobitic seastar. Wall microbial mats inside the cave were sampled and the stomach microbiome of Asterinides sp. was obtained through regurgitation. Asterinides sp. sampling was made through the Catcher Collection Chamber (CCC), an innovative technology for the exploration of these ecosystems. The obtained results suggest that microbial mats are part of the diet of Asterinides sp. The following results highlight the potential relevance of the microbial communities inside the trophic chain present in El Aerolito. Additionally, the methodology presented here provides a useful framework for future ecological research in El Aerolito cave.
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Data availability
The sequence datasets that support this study are available on NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA), under BioProject number PRJNA1119047 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra/PRJNA1119047) ; individual accession numbers: SAM41635988, SAM41635989, SAM41635990, SAM41635991, SAM41635992, SAM41635993, SAM41635994, SAM41635995, SAM41635996, SAM41635997, SAM41635998, SAM41635999. The data generated during the current study are included in the supplementary material.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Sarah Rubelowsky and Shari Rohret for their support in the field. This work was supported by the project “Tapetes microbianos y microbioma de Asterinides sp., (Echinodermata: Asteroidea) a través de su dinámica y función en la cueva el Aerolito, Isla Cozumel, Quintana Roo, México” (PAPIIT-IN207021, UNAM), the UNAM grant to Vergara-Ovando Cindel; thanks also to the participating institutions and Coco Tortuga A.C. for their additional financial support. G. Medina Tanco acknowledges financial support of DGAPA, through PAPIIT IT102926, and the Institute of Nuclear Sciences ICN-UNAM and OEI DGAJ-DPI-200922-1139. We thank the participation of Ing. Jorge Ramírez Casteñón with Dr. Gustavo Medina-Tanco for development of the CCC (LINX, Institute of Nuclear Sciences, UNAM), Dr. Silvia Espinoza Matías for scanning electron microscopy (Laboratory of Microscopy, Faculty of Sciences, UNAM) and Biol. Mariana Gonzalez-Macedo for technical and bioinformatics support, as well as English revision (Functional Microbial Ecology of Soil and Environmental Protection Group, Faculty of Sciences, UNAM).
Funding
Research funding is a grant provided by Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, PAPIIT-IN207021, to financially support the scientific project; and by Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, to support posgraduate grant.
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F.A.S.M., C.V.O., M.R.O., F.C.G., G.M.T. and N.C. wrote the main manuscript text and C.V.O. prepared Figs. 1 and 2. F.A.S.M., M.R.O. and N.C. developed the protocol experiment and supervised the project. C.V.O. performed laboratory experiments . F.A.S.M. and N.C. supervised the sampling. F.C.G. made the diving sampling. N.C. prepared samples for preservation. M.R.O. supervised experiments in laboratory. G.M.T. developed the CCC (sampling unit). All authors reviewed the manuscript.
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Solís-Marín, F.A., Vergara-Ovando, C., Rojas-Oropeza, M. et al. Asterinides sp. an endemic stygobitic seastar from an anchialine cave and its interactions among prokaryotic communities. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-36065-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-36065-5
