Local Variability in Microbiome Composition and Growth Suggests Habitat Preferences for Two Reef-Building Cold-Water Coral Species

Abstract

Cold-water coral (CWC) ecosystems provide niches and nurseries for many deep-sea species. Lophelia pertusa and Madrepora oculata, two cosmopolitan species forming three dimensional structures, are found in cold waters under specific hydrological regimes that provide food and reoxygenation. There is now more information about their feeding, their growth and their associated microbiome, however, little is known about the influence of their habitat on their physiology, or on the composition of their bacterial community. The goal of this study was to test if the habitat of L. pertusa and M. oculata influenced the hosts associated bacterial communities, the corals' survival and their skeletal growth along the slope of a submarine canyon. A transplant experiment was used, based on sampling and cross-redeployment of coral fragments at two contrasted sites, one deeper and one shallower. Our results show that M. oculata had significantly higher skeletal growth rates in the shallower site and that it had a specific microbiome that did not change between sites. Inversely, L. pertusa had the same growth rates at both sites, but its bacterial community compositions differed between locations. Additionally, transplanted L. pertusa acquired the microbial signature of the local corals. Thus, our results suggest that M. oculata prefer the shallower habitat.

Comparison of Preservation and Extraction Methods on Five Taxonomically Disparate Coral Microbiomes

“…The Shannon diversity index values for L. pertusa are consistent with findings from other studies (Meistertzheim et al, 2016;Kellogg et al, 2017;Jensen et al, 2019;Chapron et al, 2020) and the value for P. johnsoni is consistent with that calculated for congener P. arborea (Jensen et al, 2019). The shallow-water coral values were markedly higher than values recorded in the literature (Morrow et al, 2012;Glasl et al, 2019).…”

Physisorption and Chemisorption Mechanisms Influencing Micro (Nano) Plastics-Organic Chemical Contaminants Interactions: A Review

“…Evidence of the availability and contamination impacts of such chemicals has been highlighted by many researchers. The adverse effects of microplastics on fishes and large aquatic animals, zooplankton, phytoplankton, microalgae, crustaceans, and seabirds have been widely reported (Boerger et al, 2010;Kögel et al, 2019;Ma et al, 2020;Corinaldesi et al, 2021;Wang et al, 2021), at the population levels (e.g., fertility, mortality, growth and organismal development, feeding activity) (Zarfl et al, 2011;Sussarellu et al, 2016;Heindler et al, 2017;Mouchi et al, 2019;Chapron et al, 2020;Liu G. et al, 2020;Issac and Kandasubramanian, 2021), cellular (e.g., motility; cell fragmentation, membrane stability, apoptosis) (Von Moos et al, 2012;Han et al, 2020;Tallec et al, 2020), and molecular levels (e.g., mortality, gene expression, stress defense, and oxidative stress effects) (Balbi et al, 2017;Liu Z et al, 2018;Yu et al, 2018;Sendra et al, 2020;Capolupo et al, 2021). Corals readily ingest polypropylene microplastics upon exposure to plastic particles, resulting in a variety of biological implications ranging from feeding dysfunction to mucus formation and distorted gene expression (Corinaldesi et al, 2021).…”

Rapid Shifts in Bacterial Communities and Homogeneity of Symbiodiniaceae in Colonies of Pocillopora acuta Transplanted Between Reef and Mangrove Environments

“…Transplantation experiments have been used in reef studies to resolve how corals can adjust to environmental change (and/or populate diverse conditions), demonstrating capacity for corals to acclimatise to depth ranges ( Cohen and Dubinsky, 2015 ; Tamir et al, 2020 ), temperature regimes ( Barshis et al, 2010 ; Dixon et al, 2018 ), turbidity gradients ( Padilla-Gamiño et al, 2012 ), and heat stress exposure ( Palumbi et al, 2014 ). Such studies have begun to examine the possible roles that microbial associates play in facilitating acclimation, demonstrating clear shifts in microbial communities when corals are introduced to non-native environments ( Ziegler et al, 2019 ; Chapron et al, 2020 ; Roitman et al, 2020 ). For example, when transplanted to a hotter and more thermally variable environment, heat sensitive corals acquired a microbiome similar to that of heat tolerant corals ( Ziegler et al, 2017 ).…”