Metal resistant gut microbiota facilitates snails feeding on metal hyperaccumulator plant Sedum alfredii in the phytoremediation field

The interactions between hyperaccumulators and their associated herbivores have been mostly investigated in their natural habitats and largely ignored in the phytoremediation practice. Herein, we investigated the herbivory status of Zn/Cd-hyperaccumulating plant Sedum alfredii from both their natural habitats and their applied remediation field, and inspected the adaptive strategies of the herbivores from the perspective of their facilitative gut microbiota. Field investigations showed that snail species Bradybaena ravida was the dominant herbivore feeding on S. alfredii and they can be only found in sites with lower levels of heavy metals compared with the plant natural habitat. Gut microbial community was analyzed using two sequencing methods (16S rRNA and czcA-Zn/Cd resistant gene) to comparatively understand the effect of gut microbes in facilitating snail feeding on the hyperaccumulators. The results revealed significant differences in the diversity and richness between the gut microbiota of the two snail populations, which was more pronounced by the czcA sequencing method. Despite of the compositional differences, their functions seemed to converge into three categories as metal-tolerant and contaminant degraders, gut symbionts, and pathogens. Further function potentials predicted by Tax4Fun based on 16 S sequencing data were in accordance with this categorization as the most abundant metabolic pathways were two-component system and ABC transporter, which was closely related to metal stress adaptation. The prevalence of positive interactions (~80%) indicated by the co-occurrence network analysis based on czcA sequencing data in both groups of gut microbiota further suggested the facilitative effect of these metal-tolerant gut microbes in coping with the high metal diet, which ultimately assist the snails to successfully feed on S. alfredii plants and thrive. This work for the first time provides evidence that the herbivore adaptation to hyperaccumulators were also associated with their gut microbial adaptation to metals.