Sponges to Be Winners under Near-Future Climate Scenarios

Bell, James J.; Bennett, Holly; Rovellini, Alberto; Webster, Nicole S.

doi:10.1093/biosci/biy142

Cited by 99 publications

(141 citation statements)

References 91 publications

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“…This suggests that despite its convergent nature [33] , sponge microbiomes have different levels of resilience to increasing surface seawater temperatures. This indicates that anthropogenic-driven climate change and the associated projected regime shifts in coral reefs [see 36,37] will result in loser and winner sponge species showing contrasting responses to the same environmental stimulus, and will impact the composition of sponge communities in an unpredictable manner.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-term exposure to high-water temperature causes a shift in the microbiome of the common aquarium spongeLendenfeldia chondrodes

Vargas

Leiva

Wörheide

2020

Preprint

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Marine sponges harbor diverse microbiomes that contribute to their energetic and metabolic needs. Although numerous studies on sponge microbial diversity exist, relatively few focused on sponge microbial community changes under different sources of environmental stress. In this study, we assess the impact of elevated seawater temperature on the microbiome of cultured Lendenfeldia chondrodes , a coral reef sponge commonly found in marine aquaria. Lendenfeldia chondrodes exhibits high thermal tolerance showing no evidence of tissue damage or bleaching at 5°C above control water temperature (26°C). High-throughput sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA V4 region revealed a response of the microbiome of L. chondrodes to short-term exposure to elevated seawater temperature. Shifts in abundance and richness of the dominant bacterial phyla found in the microbiome of this species, namely Proteobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Planctomycetes, and Bacteroidetes, characterized this response. The observed resilience of L. chondrodes and the responsiveness of its microbiome to short-term increases in seawater temperature suggest that this holobiont may be capable of acclimating to anthropogenic-driven sublethal environmental stress via a re-accommodation of its associated bacterial community. This sheds a new light on the potential for resilience of some sponges to increasing surface seawater temperatures and associated projected regime shifts in coral reefs.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-term exposure to high-water temperature causes a shift in the microbiome of the common aquarium spongeLendenfeldia chondrodes

Vargas

Leiva

Wörheide

2020

Preprint

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“…Throughout evolution, sponge holobionts have colonized most habitats including coral reefs, where they provide essential ecosystem services for the benthos and water column. However, these ecosystems are experiencing increasingly frequent and severe thermal stress events that are reducing coral populations and directly threatening the survival of reef‐associated taxa including sponges (van Hooidonk et al ., ; Hughes et al ., ; Bell et al ., ; Bell et al ., ). Given the established importance of symbionts to sponge health (Pita et al ., ), understanding the role of microbial and viral associates in the host stress response and/or environmental adaptation is critical.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Thermal stress modifies the marine sponge virome

Laffy

Botté

Wood‐Charlson

et al. 2019

Environ Microbiol Rep

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Summary Marine sponges can form stable partnerships with a wide diversity of microbes and viruses, and this high intraspecies symbiont specificity makes them ideal models for exploring how host‐associated viromes respond to changing environmental conditions. Here we exposed the abundant Great Barrier Reef sponge Rhopaloiedes odorabile to elevated seawater temperature for 48 h and utilised a metaviromic approach to assess the response of the associated viral community. An increase in endogenous retro‐transcribing viruses within the Caulimorviridae and Retroviridae families was detected within the first 12 h of exposure to 32 °C, and a 30‐fold increase in retro‐transcribing viruses was evident after 48 h at 32 °C. Thermally stressed sponges also exhibited a complete loss of ssDNA viruses which were prevalent in field samples and sponges from the control temperature treatment. Despite these viromic changes, functional analysis failed to detect any loss or gain of auxiliary metabolic genes, indicating that viral communities are not providing a direct competitive advantage to their host under thermal stress. In contrast, endogenous sponge retro‐transcribing viruses appear to be replicating under thermal stress, and consistent with retroviral infections in other organisms, may be contributing to the previously described rapid decline in host health evident at elevated temperature.

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“…Marine sponges are distributed worldwide, from polar to the tropic regions, from the shallows to the deep sea (Van Soest et al, 2018). Under projected climate change scenarios, sponges will likely increase in abundance (Bell et al, 2013(Bell et al, , 2018, leading to a cascading effect of sponge filtration on ecosystem processes (Pawlik et al, 2016). Proper assessment of the volume of water pumped by sponges in nature is crucial for the determination of the magnitude of sponge-mediated energy and nutrient fluxes between the pelagic and the benthic realm.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%