Spatial and Species Variations in Bacterial Communities Associated with Corals from the Red Sea as Revealed by Pyrosequencing
Type
ArticleAuthors
Lee, O. O.Yang, J.
Bougouffa, S.
Wang, Yong
Batang, Zenon B.

Tian, R.
Al-Suwailem, Abdulaziz M.
Qian, P.-Y.
KAUST Department
Coastal and Marine Resources Core LabCompetitive Research Funds
OCRF- Special Academic Partnership
Office of the VP
Date
2012-08-03Online Publication Date
2012-08-03Print Publication Date
2012-10-15Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/554103
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Microbial associations with corals are common and are most likely symbiotic, although their diversity and relationships with environmental factors and host species remain unclear. In this study, we adopted a 16S rRNA gene tag-pyrosequencing technique to investigate the bacterial communities associated with three stony Scleractinea and two soft Octocorallia corals from three locations in the Red Sea. Our results revealed highly diverse bacterial communities in the Red Sea corals, with more than 600 ribotypes detected and up to 1,000 species estimated from a single coral species. Altogether, 21 bacterial phyla were recovered from the corals, of which Gammaproteobacteria was the most dominant group, and Chloroflexi, Chlamydiae, and the candidate phylum WS3 were reported in corals for the first time. The associated bacterial communities varied greatly with location, where environmental conditions differed significantly. Corals from disturbed areas appeared to share more similar bacterial communities, but larger variations in community structures were observed between different coral species from pristine waters. Ordination methods identified salinity and depth as the most influential parameters affecting the abundance of Vibrio, Pseudoalteromonas, Serratia, Stenotrophomonas, Pseudomonas, and Achromobacter in the corals. On the other hand, bacteria such as Chloracidobacterium and Endozoicomonas were more sensitive to the coral species, suggesting that the host species type may be influential in the associated bacterial community, as well. The combined influences of the coral host and environmental factors on the associated microbial communities are discussed. This study represents the first comparative study using tag-pyrosequencing technology to investigate the bacterial communities in Red Sea corals.Citation
Spatial and Species Variations in Bacterial Communities Associated with Corals from the Red Sea as Revealed by Pyrosequencing 2012, 78 (20):7173 Applied and Environmental MicrobiologyPublisher
American Society for MicrobiologyPubMed ID
22865078PubMed Central ID
PMC3457102Additional Links
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/doi/10.1128/AEM.01111-12ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1128/AEM.01111-12