Fishes represent the highest diversity of vertebrates; however, our understanding of the compositions and functions of their gut microbiota is limited. In this study, we provided the first insight into the gut microbiota of the herbivorous fish Siganus eanalieulatus by using three molecular ecology techniques based on the 16S rRNA genes （denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, clone library construction, and high- throughput Illumina sequencing）, and the Illumina sequencing technique is suggested here due to its higher overall coverage of the total 16S rRNA genes. A core gut microbiota of 29 bacterial groups, covering 〉99.9% of the total bacterial community, was found to be dominated by Proteobacteria and Firmicutes in fish fed three different diets with/without the supplementation of Ulva pertusa and non-starch polysaccharide （NSP） enzymes （cellulase, xylanase, and [3-glucanase）. Diverse potential NSP-degrading bacteria and probiotics （e.g., Ruminococcus, Clostridium and Lachnospiraceae） were detected in the intestine of the fish fed U. pertusa, suggesting that these microorganisms likely participated in the degradation of NSPs derived from U. pertusa. This study supports our previous conclusion that U. pertusa-based diets are suitable for the production ofS. eanaliculatus with lower costs without compromising quality.
Micro-communities are supposed to have more potential functions of biodegradation of polysaccharides than single strain; however, the intestinal mi ties involved in the biodegradation of Enteromorpha polysaccharides （EP） were sel- dom reported. In order to obtain the EP-degrading micro-community, the intestines of Siganus oramin was obtained to isolate the micro-communities, which were enriched by 0.3% of EP as the sole carbon source. A stable micro-community with EP degradative capability was achieved after seven generations of subculture, named H1. Results showed that H1 was able to degrade 75% of EP within 24 hours, and the activity of EP lyases reached 500 U mL-1 in 32 hours. With denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis （DGGE） and 16S rRNA gene clone library analysis, ten bacteria closely related to Marinomonas pontica, Microbacterium sp., Leucobacter chironomi, Cyclobacterium sp., Algoriphagus winogradskyi, Pseudoalteromonas sp. and Vibrio sp. were determined. Furthermore, compared with the DGGE bands sequence and the clone library analysis, the dominant bacteria of the EP-biodegrading mi- cro-community were Pseudoalteromonas sp. and Vibrio sp., with the respective proportion of 38% and 46%, and they should play an important role in EP degradation together with other degrading bacteria in the micro-community H1.
