Table 1.

Overview of the first three systematic analyses of the C. elegans microbiome.

	Dirksen et al.	Samuel et al.	Berg et al.
Study approach	Characterization of the microbiome of wild C. elegans isolates and the corresponding natural habitats	Characterization of the microbiome of C. elegans natural habitats	Characterization of the microbiome of C. elegans raised in soil and rotting fruit microcosms emulating habitats from which C. elegans has been previously isolated
C. elegans strainsa	Wild isolates	N/A	N2
Substrates	Apples, compost, vector invertebrates, stems	Apples, orange, cactus fruit, snail, black bryony stems	Soil composted with different produce (harboring complex microbiota)
Sampling location	Germany, France, Portugal	France, Spain	USA (soil isolation)
Method of analysis	Deep sequencing of 16S rDNA V4 region	Deep sequencing of 16S rDNA V4 region	Deep sequencing of 16S rDNA V4 region
Main taxa identifiedb	Proteobacteria (Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonadaceae, Xanthomonadaceae, Brucellaceae, Sphingomonadaceae)	Proteobacteria (Enterobacteriaceae, Acetobacteriaceae), Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria	Proteobacteria (Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonadaceae, Xanthomonadaceae, Burkholderiaceae, Aeromonadaceae, Alcaligenaceae, Rhizobiaceae), Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes
Functional evaluation (effect of microbiome on life history traits)	Population growth on 24 individual bacterial isolates and on 14-taxa community under stress (high temperature, low/high osmolarity). Pathogen resistance.	Growth rates and induction of stress and immune reporters on 565 individual bacterial isolates from worm gut and/or substrates	N/A

^aOnly C. elegans strains for which the microbiome was characterized.

^bNon-exhaustive list of only some of the taxa.