Reef Location and Client Diversity Influence the Skin Microbiome of the Caribbean Cleaner Goby Elacatinus evelynae

Pereira, Ana; Soares, Marta C.; Santos, Teresa M.; Poças, Ana; Pérez‐Losada, Marcos; Apprill, Amy; Sikkel, Paul C.; Xavier, Raquel

doi:10.1007/s00248-022-01984-z

Cited by 6 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 52 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Dedicated cleaner fishes have been shown to multiple, positive, impacts on their reef fish clients and thus coral reefassociated communities at large, possibly extending even to microbial communities (Pereira et al, 2022). The services provided appear to be unique and thus not completely replaceable (Nicholson et al, 2024).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of stony coral tissue loss disease on the persistence of Caribbean cleaner gobies

Budd,

Sikkel,

Brandt

et al. 2024

Front. Mar. Sci.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Because they serve as the main architects of coral reefs, the distribution and abundance of stony coral species have major impacts on other associated community members. Thus, coral diseases can have significant cascading effects throughout the ecosystem. Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) is the most recent of many diseases documented to impact Caribbean stony corals. SCTLD is known to impact over 20 species of reef-building corals and can cause complete colony mortality of large corals in only one month. Among the coral species impacted are those occupied as cleaning stations by Caribbean cleaner gobies. This study examined the persistence of these gobies on living coral cleaning stations where SCTLD was most recently or not yet affected (emergent), recently established (epidemic), and well-established (endemic),. Timed surveys were conducted at nine reefs in the U.S. Virgin Islands between October 2019 and March 2021. Study sites were surveyed both before and after the outbreak/establishment of SCTLD where possible. Monitoring sites were established at six reefs by tagging 25 live coral cleaning stations at each of two endemic and two epidemic sites and 50 cleaning stations at each of two emergent sites. Goby abundance at each site was monitored at least five times from March 2020 to April 2021. Timed surveys found cleaner goby abundance was 50% lower in the endemic zone compared to epidemic and emergent zones. Overall, goby abundance declined on tagged cleaning stations throughout the course of this study at all sites. However, overall goby density within monitored areas remained stable across most sites from the beginning to the end of the study. One emergent site experienced a two-fold increase in goby density and one epidemic site experienced a decline in goby density. This suggests that gobies are remaining at the site but may be abandoning live coral cleaning stations as the individual colonies are affected by SCTLD. Given the benefit cleaner gobies have on local coral reef fishes, changes in cleaning activity associated with coral disease have the potential to negatively impact Caribbean reef fish communities.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of stony coral tissue loss disease on the persistence of Caribbean cleaner gobies

Budd,

Sikkel,

Brandt

et al. 2024

Front. Mar. Sci.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although fish microbiome diversity and richness may be intrinsically less susceptible to external stressors, it could also be that colonisation of fish tissues by bacterioplankton or from other reservoirs, such as bottom sediments or biofilms established on fish tanks, might rapidly occur after disturbance. Additionally, fish‐to‐fish contact may also promote homogenisation of bacterial microbiota of co‐housed fish, 149 potentially diluting or masking microbial diversity decreases. We propose that in aquaculture settings, where disease and treatments are common and changes to water physio‐chemistry may occur frequently, fish homeostasis could be effectively monitored by regularly surveying bacterial community structure (beta diversity) in conjunction with the detection of increases in the abundance of potential pathogenic taxa.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signatures of dysbiosis in fish microbiomes in the context of aquaculture

Xavier,

Severino,

Silva

2023

Reviews in Aquaculture

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Fish microbiome plays an important role in maintaining host homeostasis, with many bacterial functions directly linked to host fitness. Fish microbiome research is advancing fast, especially in the context of aquaculture where several stressors are known to disrupt stability of host‐associated bacteria, prompting dysbiosis. Therefore, understanding the signatures of dysbiosis in different fish mucosae and their association with such stressors is fundamental to set up efficient health‐monitoring strategies, as well as sound and objective working hypothesis for future research. Herein, we reviewed studies that employed culture‐independent approaches to assess the effects of disease, chemotherapeutics and water quality changes on several diversity metrics of gut, skin and gill microbiomes. We conclude that increases in abundance of potential pathogens and changes to bacterial community structure are reliable indicators of dysbiosis in fish. The gut microbiome emerged as being highly susceptible to salinity changes and chemotherapeutics, whereas external microbiota seems to be more susceptible to dysbiosis caused by disease and temperature changes. Our analysis showed that treatments with tetracyclines and florfenicol are more likely to elicit severe dysbiosis compared to quinolones and disinfectants that cause lesser disturbance to fish microbiome. Bacterial diseases also frequently elicit severe dysbiosis (enteritis in particular), whereas parasitic diseases are far less deleterious. Regarding impacts on water quality, only changes to salinity and temperature are reasonably studied. Recent developments in metagenomics, that include a fast turn‐around time of results, can be used to detect changes to fish homeostasis during critical periods of fish production, assisting aquaculture management.

show abstract

“…This creates an ideal scenario to examine the ecology of microbial exchanges between fishes as these specialist or 'dedicated' cleaners physically contact fish from multiple species during any given day (reviewed by Quimbayo et al (2021) and Vaughan et al (2017)). Through this activity, cleaners have the potential to obtain and transfer microbes and thus significantly impact the composition of the microbiome of fish and even broader ecosystems (Narvaez et al, 2021;Pereira et al, 2023;Xavier et al, 2019). In vertebrates, decreases in microbiome alpha-diversity are usually considered deleterious as they reduce competition among microbial commensals, permitting colonization by pathogens or opportunistic species, and because they can potentially affect microbiome function (Pickard et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reef fish microbiomes are highly influenced by local environmental conditions (e.g. Kim et al., 2021, Pereira et al., 2023, Xavier et al., 2020), with human disturbance and reef degradation having a detrimental effect on fish gut microbiome (Clever et al., 2022). The extent to which fish dispersal of microbes across the ecosystem can affect or benefit coral reef health is poorly understood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(2017)). Through this activity, cleaners have the potential to obtain and transfer microbes and thus significantly impact the composition of the microbiome of fish and even broader ecosystems (Narvaez et al., 2021; Pereira et al., 2023; Xavier et al., 2019). In vertebrates, decreases in microbiome alpha‐diversity are usually considered deleterious as they reduce competition among microbial commensals, permitting colonization by pathogens or opportunistic species, and because they can potentially affect microbiome function (Pickard et al., 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Effects of two common antibiotics on the skin microbiome of ornamental reef fishes: Implications for manipulative experiments in microbial dynamics

Pereira,

Brown,

Strobel

et al. 2024

Aquaculture Fish & Fisheries

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An understanding of the mechanistic drivers of animal‐microbial symbiosis and associations generally requires experiments that manipulate specific symbionts or microbial communities. As part of an ongoing study of the mechanisms that drive microbial communities in coral reef fishes, and specifically the role of cleanerfish in microbial transmission, we tested the effects of the commonly used antibiotics Enrofloxacin and Nitrofurazone on the skin microbiome of three ornamental reef fish species: the four‐eyed butterflyfish, Chaetodon capistratus (Chaetodontidae), the cleanerfish neon goby Elacatinus oceanops (Gobiidae) and the beaugregory damselfish Stegastes leucostictus (Pomacentridae). Our main aim was to characterize dysbiosis prompted by the delivery of the two antibiotics and understand whether both could be used to establish good starting points for microbial transmission experiments. We bathed the fish in antibiotic (or no exposure in the controls), sampled the skin microbiota via swabbing at zero (before treatment) and 3 and 7 days during the treatments, and examined the microbial community using a 16S rRNA gene sequencing approach. Nitrofurazone reduced skin‐associated microbial diversity in all species, whereas the same effect for Enrofloxacin was only seen in S. leucostictus. Although each antibiotic had its own, unique impact in microbial community, all treatments showed positive and negative shifts in the most abundant microbial taxa over time. Moreover, soon after the delivery of both antibiotics, increases in the abundance of opportunistic bacteria or potential pathogens, such as Alteromonas and Vibrio, were observed. Although both antibiotics are effective, Nitrofurazone more successfully reduces microbial diversity and therefore may be more ideal for experiments seeking to disrupt fish microbiomes.

show abstract

Reef Location and Client Diversity Influence the Skin Microbiome of the Caribbean Cleaner Goby Elacatinus evelynae

Cited by 6 publications

References 52 publications

Impacts of stony coral tissue loss disease on the persistence of Caribbean cleaner gobies

Impacts of stony coral tissue loss disease on the persistence of Caribbean cleaner gobies

Signatures of dysbiosis in fish microbiomes in the context of aquaculture

Effects of two common antibiotics on the skin microbiome of ornamental reef fishes: Implications for manipulative experiments in microbial dynamics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About