Fig. 5

Comparative analysis of microbial populations in different jellyfish species. (A) ASV-level relative abundance. The heatmap displays the top 10 ASVs for each jellyfish species after a 100% sequence similarity BLAST match, yielding 59 unique ASVs defined based on a 250 bp segment of the conserved V4 region. When more than one ASV has identical V4 regions (but, for example, differ in other sequenced regions) they are combined to include a single representative ASV from each species. (B) Genus-level relative abundance heatmap. Displays the aggregation of all ASVs at the genus level identified in panel A and incorporating additional Rhisoztoma pulmo sequences from the V5V6 16S region (which do not overlap with the V4 region and thus could not be included in the ASV comparison in panel A). Mean relative abundances per jellyfish species are represented through a color gradient, normalized using log (x + 1) to accommodate both low and high values. A phylogenetic tree above the heatmaps orders jellyfish species by their evolutionary relationships, aiding in the detection of microbial composition patterns