Resident microbes (microbiota) can shape host organismal function and adaptation in the face of environmental change. Invasion of new habitats exposes hosts to novel selection pressures, but the impacts on microbiota and their relationship with hosts after this transition (e.g., how rapidly symbioses are formed, whether microbes influence invasion success) are unclear. We used high-throughput 16S rRNA sequencing of New Zealand (native) and European (invasive) populations of the freshwater snail

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... Potamopyrgus antipodarum to find that while invaders do carry over some core microbial taxa from New Zealand, most of their microbial community is distinct. This finding highlights that invasions can result in the formation of novel symbioses. We further show that the native microbiome is composed of fewer core microbes than invasive snails, suggesting that the microbiota is streamlined to essential members. Together, our findings demonstrate that microbiota comparisons across native and invasive populations can reveal the impact of a long coevolutionary history and specialization of microbes in the native host range, as well as new associations occurring after invasion.