Project name: uncultured bacterium

Description: Bacteria associated with three species of coral before and after mass spawning.Bacteria associated with three coral species, Acropora millepora, Pocilloporadamicornis and Tubastrea faulkneri, were assessed before and after coral massspawning on Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia to correlate microbial diversity andcommunity structure with coral reproductive stages and strategies. Two colonies ofeach species were sampled before and after the mass spawning event and twoadditional samples were collected for P. damicornis after planulation to allowcomparison between brooding and spawning coral reproductive strategies. A variable470 bp region of the 16S rRNA gene was selected for pyrosequencing to provide anunderstanding of potential variations in coral-associated bacterial diversity andcommunity structure. Bacterial diversity increased for all coral species after spawningas assessed by Chao1 diversity indicators. Minimal changes in community structurewere observed at the class level and data at the taxonomical level of genusincorporated into a PCA analysis indicated that despite bacterial diversity increasingafter spawning, coral-associated community structure did not shift greatly with samplesgrouped according to species. However, interesting changes could be detected fromthe dataset; for example, á-Proteobacteria increased in relative abundance after coralspawning and particularly the Roseobacter clade was found to be prominent in all coralspecies, indicating this group, regardless of the corals' reproductive strategy may beimportant in coral reproduction and early coral life stages which has been proposed inprevious studies.

Data type: targeted loci

Sample scope: Environment

Relevance: Environmental

Last updated: 2012-05-20