Marine lakes are unique ecosystems that contain isolated populations of marine organisms. Isolated from the surrounding marine habitat, many lakes house numerous endemic species. In this study, microbial communities of sponges inhabiting these lakes were investigated for the first time using barcoded pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons. Our main goals were to compare the bacterial richness and composition of two sponge species (Suberites diversicolor and Cinachyrella australiensis) inhabiting both marine lakes and adjacent open coastal systems. Host species and habitat explained almost 59% of the variation in bacterial composition. There was a significant difference in composition between both host species. Within S. diversicolor, there was little discernible difference between bacterial communities inside and outside lakes. The bacterial community of this species was, furthermore, dominated (63% of all sequences) by three very closely related alphaproteobacterial taxa identified as belonging to the recently described order Kiloniellales. Cinachyrella australiensis, in contrast, hosted markedly different bacterial communities inside and outside lakes with very few shared abundant taxa. Cinachyrella australiensis in open habitat only shared 9.4% of OTUs with C. australiensis in lake habitat. Bacteria were thus both highly species specific and, in the case of C. australiensis, habitat specific.
In the present study, we assessed the composition of Bacteria in four biotopes namely sediment, seawater and two sponge species (Stylissa massa and Xestospongia testudinaria) at four different reef sites in a coral reef ecosystem in West Java, Indonesia. In addition to this, we used a predictive metagenomic approach to estimate to what extent nitrogen metabolic pathways differed among bacterial communities from different biotopes. We observed marked differences in bacterial composition of the most abundant bacterial phyla, classes and orders among sponge species, water and sediment. Proteobacteria were by far the most abundant phylum in terms of both sequences and Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs). Predicted counts for genes associated with the nitrogen metabolism suggested that several genes involved in the nitrogen cycle were enriched in sponge samples, including nosZ, nifD, nirK, norB and nrfA genes. Our data show that a combined barcoded pyrosequencing and predictive metagenomic approach can provide novel insights into the potential ecological functions of the microbial communities. Not only is this approach useful for our understanding of the vast microbial diversity found in sponges but also to understand the potential response of microbial communities to environmental change.
Much recent marine microbial research has focused on sponges, but very little is known about how the sponge microbiome fits in the greater coral reef microbial metacommunity. Here, we present an extensive survey of the prokaryote communities of a wide range of biotopes from Indo-Pacific coral reef environments. We find a large variation in operational taxonomic unit (OTU) richness, with algae, chitons, stony corals and sea cucumbers housing the most diverse prokaryote communities. These biotopes share a higher percentage and number of OTUs with sediment and are particularly enriched in members of the phylum Planctomycetes. Despite having lower OTU richness, sponges share the greatest percentage (>90%) of OTUs with >100 sequences with the environment (sediment and/or seawater) although there is considerable variation among sponge species. Our results, furthermore, highlight that prokaryote microorganisms are shared among multiple coral reef biotopes, and that, although compositionally distinct, the sponge prokaryote community does not appear to be as sponge-specific as previously thought.
In this study, we used a 16S rRNA gene barcoded pyrosequencing approach to sample bacterial communities from six biotopes, namely, seawater, sediment and four sponge species (Stylissa carteri, Stylissa massa, Xestospongia testudinaria and Hyrtios erectus) inhabiting coral reefs of the Spermonde Archipelago, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Samples were collected along a pronounced onshore to offshore environmental gradient. Our goals were to (1) compare higher taxon abundance among biotopes, (2) test to what extent variation in bacterial composition can be explained by the biotope versus environment, (3) identify dominant (>300 sequences) bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and their closest known relatives and (4) assign putative functions to the sponge bacterial communities using a recently developed predictive metagenomic approach. We observed marked differences in bacterial composition and the relative abundance of the most abundant phyla, classes and orders among sponge species, seawater and sediment. Although all biotopes housed compositionally distinct bacterial communities, there were three prominent clusters. These included (1) both Stylissa species and seawater, (2) X. testudinaria and H. erectus and (3) sediment. Bacterial communities sampled from the same biotope, but different environments (based on proximity to the coast) were much more similar than bacterial communities from different biotopes in the same environment. The biotope thus appears to be a much more important structuring force than the surrounding environment. There were concomitant differences in the predicted counts of KEGG orthologs (KOs) suggesting that bacterial communities housed in different sponge species, sediment and seawater perform distinct functions. In particular, the bacterial communities of both Stylissa species were predicted to be enriched for KOs related to chemotaxis, nitrification and denitrification whereas bacterial communities in X. testudinaria and H. erectus were predicted to be enriched for KOs related to the toxin-antitoxin (TA) system, nutrient starvation and heavy metal export.
In the present study, we compared communities of bacteria in two jellyfish species (the 'golden' jellyfish Mastigias cf.papua and the box jellyfish Tripedalia cf.cystophora) and water in three marine lakes located in the Berau region of northeastern Borneo, Indonesia. Jellyfish-associated bacterial communities were compositionally distinct and less diverse than bacterioplankton communities. Alphaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, Synechococcophycidae and Flavobacteriia were the most abundant classes in water. Jellyfish-associated bacterial communities were dominated by OTUs assigned to the Gammaproteobacteria (family Endozoicimonaceae), Mollicutes, Spirochaetes and Alphaproteobacteria (orders Kiloniellales and Rhodobacterales). Mollicutes were mainly restricted to Mastigias whereas Spirochaetes and the order Kiloniellales were most abundant in Tripedalia hosts. The most abundant OTU overall in jellyfish hosts was assigned to the family Endozoicimonaceae and was highly similar to organisms in Genbank obtained from various hosts including an octocoral, bivalve and fish species. Other abundant OTUs included an OTU assigned to the order Entomoplasmatales and mainly found in Mastigias hosts and OTUs assigned to the Spirochaetes and order Kiloniellales and mainly found in Tripedalia hosts. The low sequence similarity of the Entomoplasmatales OTU to sequences in Genbank suggests that it may be a novel lineage inhabiting Mastigias and possibly restricted to marine lakes.
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