Corals are known to contain a diverse microbiota; however, few studies have explicitly addressed the spatial variability of bacterial communities across individual, healthy coral colonies. This study applied culture-based and culture-independent methods to examine the spatial heterogeneity in bacterial communities in the mucus of 3 healthy Montastraea annularis colonies from Looe Key Reef, Florida Keys. Automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA) results showed significant variability (up to 61% dissimilarity) in the composition of the total bacterial community at different locations only centimeters apart on individual coral colonies. Abundances of culturable Vibrio spp. determined by TCBS plating were highly variable across individual coral colonies, differing by up to 100-fold between different locations on the same colony. ARISA profiles indicated that intracolony variation rivaled intercolony differences in the composition of the culturable Vibrio community (i.e. types of culturable Vibrio spp. and their relative abundances). The high degree of spatial heterogeneity in coral-associated bacteria observed across individual colonies has implications for coral microbiology studies and coral restoration projects.KEY WORDS: Community profiling · ARISA · Bacteria · Coral · Spatial heterogeneity · Vibrio Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherMar Ecol Prog Ser 426: [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] 2011 in bacterial community composition have been observed in bleached and diseased corals, with opportunists and pathogens present in these health-compromised states (Ritchie & Smith 1995, Kushmaro et al. 1997, Frias-Lopez et al. 2002, Pantos et al. 2003, Pantos & Bythell 2006, Ritchie 2006.The coral surface layers are extremely complex and dynamic (Ainsworth et al. 2006, Johnston & Rohwer 2007; however, few studies have examined spatial heterogeneity in coral-microbe associations across individual coral colonies. In diseased coral colonies, significant differences have been observed between the bacteria found in the healthy versus diseased portions of the colony (Frias-Lopez et al. 2002, Pantos et al. 2003, Breitbart et al. 2005, Gil-Agudelo et al. 2006, Pantos & Bythell 2006, Sekar et al. 2006. A limited number of studies have also demonstrated spatial variation in the bacterial community associated with healthy branching corals. Rohwer et al. (2002) demonstrated that bacterial communities were spatially structured on the branching coral Porites furcata, with specific bacterial taxa only found at the branch tips. In addition, bacterial community analysis in 6 replicate tissue samples from healthy Pocillopora damicornis colonies revealed spatial heterogeneity across some coral colonies (Bourne & Munn 2005), although some bacteria were uniformly found throughout an individual coral colony. Hansson et al. (2009) also demonstrated that the cold water coral Madrepora oculata exhibited spatial variation of bacterial communities within and among co...

Results of analyses in this study confirmed a diagnosis of thiamine deficiency for affected seals resulting from high thiaminase activity in dietary fish, inadequate vitamin administration, and increased thiamine demand caused by pregnancy and lactation.

Russian Sturgeon Acipenser gueldenstaedtii are an important, critically endangered, roe‐producing species. Despite a wealth of knowledge pertaining to other members of family Acipenseridae, there is very limited published information regarding baseline blood analytes in Russian Sturgeon. The objectives of this study were (1) to establish reference intervals for a suite of hematological and biochemical data and (2) to compare plasma chemistry data to two point‐of‐care (POC) cartridges, tested on the VetScan iSTAT 1 analyzer, that use heparinized whole blood for the assessment of clinically normal, aquacultured adult Russian Sturgeon sedated with eugenol (AQUI‐S 20E) at a single institution. Reference intervals are reported. The calculated hematocrit measured by the POC analyzer tended 4–5% lower than the spun packed cell volume, confirming the importance of spun packed cell volume as a reliable measurement of red blood cell mass. Various analytes, notably whole‐blood urea nitrogen, glucose, sodium, total carbon dioxide, chloride, ionized calcium, and anion gap, were significantly different by both POC cartridges. This study successfully produced reference intervals for blood analytes in adult Russian Sturgeon under managed care and creates a foundation for future studies into the effects of extrinsic and intrinsic factors and variations of analytical methodologies on blood analytes in this species.

No abstract