Vol. 6 No. 1 (2023): The Reality of Women in Science

• Owolabi, S. L.
  Department of Microbiology, School of Science and Technology, Gateway Polytechnic, Saapade, Ogun State, Nigeria
  




• Hassan, O. A.
  Department of Science Laboratory Technology (Microbiology Option), Gateway (ICT) Polytechnic, Saapade, Ogun State, Nigeria
  




• Odebiyi, M. O.
  Department of Science Laboratory Technology (Microbiology Option), Gateway (ICT) Polytechnic, Saapade, Ogun State, Nigeria
  




• Adeyemo, S. A.
  Department of Biotechnology, Mountain Top University, Kilometer 12, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Prayer City, Ogun State, Nigeria
  




• James-Edwards, I. S.
  Department of Clinical and Bio Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria
  




• Salako, B. O.
  Department of Science Laboratory Technology, Gateway (ICT) Polytechnic, Saapade, Ogun State, Nigeria
  

West African coastal waters remain a critical blind spot in marine virome research, with crustacean viruses largely uncharacterized. DNA was extracted from Cancer species. and sequenced (Illumina, 2×150 bp); quality filtering, host removal, and assembly used Trimmomatic, Bowtie2, FastQC, and SPAdes. Viral sequences were classified with Kraken2 and BLASTn. Diversity indices, PERMANOVA (999 permutations), PERMDISP, NMDS, and phylogenetics (MAFFT, RAxML, 1,000 bootstraps) were computed. Virus-host association networks were constructed using Cytoscape. Metagenomic sequencing of Cancer sp. generated 1,431,116 reads, with >99% exceeding Q30. Assembly produced 6,217 contigs (N50 = 769 bp). Following quality filtering, 2,795 reads (0.01%) were assigned to viral taxa. The virome was dominated by unclassified sequences (795 reads; 28.44%) and Baculoviridae (698 reads; 24.97%), followed by Siphoviridae (4.47%), Autographiviridae (4.22%), Myoviridae (1.75%), and Nimaviridae (0.21%). The predominance of Baculoviridae was significant (χ² = 98.76, p < 0.001), with Choristoneura fumiferana granulovirus as the most abundant species. Alpha diversity revealed moderate diversity (Shannon H′ = 0.974; Simpson D = 0.591) and uneven community structure (Pielou`s J′ = 0.369). Rarefaction approached an asymptote at ~2,500 reads. PERMANOVA revealed significant differences between crab and reference viromes (F = 19.424, R² = 0.658, p = 0.001), with NMDS showing clear separation (stress = 0.089). The virus-host network (12 nodes, 12 edges; density = 0.143). Phylogenetic analysis showed bootstrap support of 8–100%. White Spot Syndrome Virus was detected at low abundance (2 reads). These findings provided baseline viral data for West African crustaceans and highlighted the need for continued surveillance.

Keywords: Virome; Marine crab; White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV); Viral Ecology