Geographical variations in bacterial communities associated with soft coral Scleronephthya gracillimum

PLoS One. 2017 Aug 31;12(8):e0183663. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0183663. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Environmental impacts can alter relationships between a coral and its symbiotic microbial community. Furthermore, changes in the microbial community associated with increased seawater temperatures can cause opportunistic infections, coral disease and death. Interactions between soft corals and their associated microbes are not well understood. The species Scleronephthya gracillimum is distributed in tropical to temperate zones in coral assemblages along the Kuroshio Current region. In this study we collected S. gracillimum from various sites at different latitudes, and compared composition of their bacterial communities using Next Generation Sequencing. Coral samples from six geographically distinct areas (two sites each in Taiwan, Japan, and Korea) had considerable variation in their associated bacterial communities and diversity. Endozoicimonaceae was the dominant group in corals from Korea and Japan, whereas Mycoplasma was dominant in corals from Taiwan corals. Interestingly, the latter corals had lower relative abundance of Endozoicimonaceae, but greater diversity. These biogeographic differences in bacterial composition may have been due to varying environmental conditions among study locations, or because of host responses to prevailing environmental conditions. This study provided a baseline for future studies of soft coral microbiomes, and assessment of functions of host metabolites and soft coral holobionts.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Anthozoa / genetics*
  • Anthozoa / growth & development
  • Anthozoa / microbiology*
  • Bacteria / classification
  • Bacteria / genetics
  • Environmental Monitoring
  • Geography
  • High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
  • Japan
  • Mycoplasma / genetics*
  • Mycoplasma / isolation & purification
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / genetics
  • Republic of Korea
  • Seawater / microbiology
  • Symbiosis / genetics*
  • Taiwan

Substances

  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Korean Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (PE99541, NRF-2017R1A2B201254), Korean Coral Resources Bank (KCRB) funded by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, Korea and Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, and the Seto Marine Biological Laboratory, Kyoto University, and Biological Institute on Kuroshio. VD is supported by a grant from the Ministry Of Science and Technology (Taiwan, no. 104-2611-M-002 -020 -MY2).