Microbiomes of gall-inducing copepod crustaceans from the corals Stylophora pistillata (Scleractinia) and Gorgonia ventalina (Alcyonacea)

Abstract

Corals harbor complex and diverse microbial communities that strongly impact host fitness and resistance to diseases, but these microbes themselves can be influenced by stresses, like those caused by the presence of macroscopic symbionts. In addition to directly influencing the host, symbionts may transmit pathogenic microbial communities. We analyzed two coral gall-forming copepod systems by using 16S rRNA gene metagenomic sequencing: (1) the sea fan Gorgonia ventalina with copepods of the genus Sphaerippe from the Caribbean and (2) the scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata with copepods of the genus Spaniomolgus from the Saudi Arabian part of the Red Sea. We show that bacterial communities in these two systems were substantially different with Actinobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria, and Betaproteobacteria more prevalent in samples from Gorgonia ventalina, and Gammaproteobacteria in Stylophora pistillata. In Stylophora pistillata, normal coral microbiomes were enriched with the common coral symbiont Endozoicomonas and some unclassified bacteria, while copepod and gall-tissue microbiomes were highly enriched with the family ME2 (Oceanospirillales) or Rhodobacteraceae. In Gorgonia ventalina, no bacterial group had significantly different prevalence in the normal coral tissues, copepods, and injured tissues. The total microbiome composition of polyps injured by copepods was different. Contrary to our expectations, the microbial community composition of the injured gall tissues was not directly affected by the microbiome of the gall-forming symbiont copepods.

A review of Caribbean Copepoda associated with reef-dwelling cnidarians, echinoderms and sponges

“…They are found on 4% of potential hosts of the Caribbean invertebrates which corresponds with previous data on symbiotic copepods (Humes, 1994). The literature and samples analyses indicate a poor knowledge of the diversity and distribution of symbiotic copepods living on different hosts in various ecoregions, and a particularly poor knowledge of copepods living on corals and sponges (Boxshall & Huys, 1994;García-Hernández et al, 2019; present study) with unknown but potentially high impact on their host and reef community (Ho, 2001;Berkenbusch & Rowden, 2003;Hatcher et al, 2012;Shelyakin et al, 2018;Zeppilli et al, 2015Zeppilli et al, , 2018.…”

“…Twelve families of copepods have been reported on diverse Caribbean echinoderms (Edwards, 1891;Emson & Mladenov, 1987;Emson et al, 1985;Hendler & Kim, 2010;Humes & Hendler, 1972, 1999Humes & Ho, 1970, 1971Humes & Stock, 1973;Humes, 1969aHumes, , 1998Humes, , 2000Kim, 2009Kim, , 2010Stock & Gooding, 1986;Stock & Humes, 1995;Stock et al, 1962Stock et al, , 1963aStock, 1968;Varela et al, 2003Varela et al, , 2005bVarela et al, , 2008Varela, 2010aVarela, , 2011a. Most of these studies on Caribbean invertebrateassociated copepods are from the last century and only 19 of them have been published since 2000 (Humes, 2000;Varela et al, 2003Varela et al, , 2005aVarela et al, , b, 2007aVarela et al, , b, 2008Varela & Lalana, 2007;Kim, 2009Kim, , 2010Hendler & Kim, 2010;Varela, 2010aVarela, , b, 2011aVarela, , b, 2012Ivanenko et al, 2017;Shelyakin et al, 2018;Garcia-Hernandez et al, 2019).…”

“…Caribbean reef corals are under threat from climate change and local impacts (Carpenter et al, 2008;Hughes et al, 2017) and some symbiotic (including parasitic) copepods potentially may have an impact on the state of corals and other invertebrate hosts (Stock, 1975a;Butter, 1979;Herriott & Immermann, 1979;Burke & Maidens, 2004;Ivanenko et al, 2017;Shelyakin et al, 2018). Despite a long history of marine biodiversity research in the Caribbean, our knowledge of microscopic symbiotic copepods does not satisfy the needs for defining priorities in conservation and the development of management plans (Miloslavich et al, 2010;Zeppilli at al., 2015Zeppilli at al., , 2018.…”

Meta-analysis cum machine learning approaches address the structure and biogeochemical potential of marine copepod associated bacteriobiomes

“… V3–V4 Illumina MiSeq De Corteet al 9 11 PRJNA433804 Spaniomolgus sp. V4–V5 Ion_Torrent Shelyakin et al 71 …”

Five new coexisting species of copepod crustaceans of the genus Spaniomolgus (Poecilostomatoida: Rhynchomolgidae), symbionts of the stony coral Stylophora pistillata (Scleractinia)

“…Spaniomolgus are found in association with scleractinians of the genera Acropora Oken, 1815, Seriatopora Lamarck, 1816, and Stylophora Schweigger, 1820 from Madagascar (Humes and Ho 1968, Humes and Stock 1972, 1973). There have been no records of Spaniomolgus since the revision of the lichomolgoid complex (Humes and Stock 1972, 1973) and until the discovery of an unidentified species of Spaniomolgus living in modified polyps (galls) of Stylophorapistillata Esper, 1797 in the Red Sea (Ivanenko et al 2014, Shelyakin et al 2018). …”