Journal article
Host Traits and Phylogeny Contribute to Shaping Coral-Bacterial Symbioses
F Ricci, K Tandon, JR Black, KA Lê Cao, LL Blackall, H Verbruggen
Msystems | AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY | Published : 2022
Abstract
The success of tropical scleractinian corals depends on their ability to establish symbioses with microbial partners. Host phylogeny and traits are known to shape the coral microbiome, but to what extent they affect its composition remains unclear. Here, by using 12 coral species representing the complex and robust clades, we explored the influence of host phylogeny, skeletal architecture, and reproductive mode on the microbiome composition, and further investigated the structure of the tissue and skeleton bacterial communities. Our results show that host phylogeny and traits explained 14% of the tissue and 13% of the skeletal microbiome composition, providing evidence that these predictors ..
View full abstractGrants
Awarded by Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank the staff at Heron Island Research Station for assisting and Stephen Wilcox from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for supervising the molecular analysis and facilitating sequencing. We acknowledge the Melbourne TrACEES Platform (Trace Analysis for Chemical, Earth and Environmental Sciences) for access to the micro-CT scanner. K.T. is thankful to Sen-Lin Tang from the Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, for hosting him in his laboratory. We acknowledge funding from the Australian Research Council (grant DP200101613 to H.V. and L.L.B.), from a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Career Development fellowship (GNT1159458 to K.-A.L.C.), rom the Environmental Microbiology Research Initiative at the University of Melbourne (to F.R.), from the Native Australian Animal Trust (to F.R.), and from the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment (to F.R.). F.R. and H.V. contributed to the conceptual development of the manuscript. F.R. conducted the experiments. F.R., K.T., J.B., and H.V. conducted the data analysis. All authors contributed to the final edited version of th manuscript. On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.