The coral core microbiome identifies rare bacterial taxa as ubiquitous endosymbionts

Despite being one of the simplest metazoans, corals harbor some of the most highly diverse and abundant microbial communities. Differentiating core, symbiotic bacteria from this diverse host-associated consortium is essential for characterizing the functional contributions of bacteria but has not be...

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Published inThe ISME Journal Vol. 9; no. 10; pp. 2261 - 2274
Main Authors D Ainsworth, Tracy, Krause, Lutz, Bridge, Thomas, Torda, Gergely, Raina, Jean-Baptise, Zakrzewski, Martha, Gates, Ruth D, Padilla-Gamiño, Jacqueline L, Spalding, Heather L, Smith, Celia, Woolsey, Erika S, Bourne, David G, Bongaerts, Pim, Hoegh-Guldberg, Ove, Leggat, William
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.10.2015
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects
14
14/19
631/326/171
Algae
Animals
Anthozoa - microbiology
Bacteria
Bacteria - genetics
Bacteria - isolation & purification
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Dinoflagellida - genetics
DNA, Bacterial - analysis
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology
Harbors
Life Sciences
Metazoa
Microbial activity
Microbial Ecology
Microbial Genetics and Genomics
Microbiology
Microbiota - genetics
Oceans
Original
original-article
Phylogeny
Sequence Analysis, DNA
Symbiosis - genetics
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Summary:Despite being one of the simplest metazoans, corals harbor some of the most highly diverse and abundant microbial communities. Differentiating core, symbiotic bacteria from this diverse host-associated consortium is essential for characterizing the functional contributions of bacteria but has not been possible yet. Here we characterize the coral core microbiome and demonstrate clear phylogenetic and functional divisions between the micro-scale, niche habitats within the coral host. In doing so, we discover seven distinct bacterial phylotypes that are universal to the core microbiome of coral species, separated by thousands of kilometres of oceans. The two most abundant phylotypes are co-localized specifically with the corals’ endosymbiotic algae and symbiont-containing host cells. These bacterial symbioses likely facilitate the success of the dinoflagellate endosymbiosis with corals in diverse environmental regimes.
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These authors contributed equally to this work.
Current address: Plant Functional Biology and Climate Change Cluster (C3), University of Technology, 123 Broadway, Sydney, New South Wales 2007, Australia.
ISSN:1751-7362
1751-7370
DOI:10.1038/ismej.2015.39