Abstract:
Aspidochirote holothurians commonly referred to as "sea cucumber" are echinoderms that are
very characteristic of their "deposit feeders" behavior. These marine animals have a
significant aquaculture potential, in different parts of the world. In this work, we performed a
characterization of the bacterial flora of the digestive tract of Holothuria poli.
The number of bacteria at the Forgut (3.5 x 103 CFU/ml) is greater than that of the biotope
sediment (0.5 x 103 CFU/ml); which suggests that Holothuria poli selects sediments that are
rich in bacteria. The strain isolated from Forgut belongs to the genus Micrococcus, the one
isolated from Hindgut belongs to the Enterobacteriaceae family; while those isolated from the
sediment of the biotope, belong to the Enterobacteriaceae family as well as to the genus
Neisseria. Except Neisseria, the strains obtained are also observed in other sea cucumber
species.
