Blog Post Image: Variety in Diet Can Hamper Microbial Diversity in the Gut

Fish that are picky eaters, focusing on just one type of food, such as small crustaceans (top) or chironomid insect larvae (bottom), have more diverse microbial communities in their intestines. In contrast, fish eating a more diverse mixture of foods have less diverse microbes in their intestine (middle). This is illustrated with a cartoon of multiple species of microbes (shaded shapes) inside the fish intestine (tan cylinders on right). Image credit: The University of Texas at Austin