Publication Date:
2015-12-17
Description:
Sponges are well known for hosting dense and diverse microbial communities, but how these associations vary with biogeography and environment is less clear. Here we compared the microbiome of an ecologically important sponge species,Carteriospongia foliascens, over a large geographic area and identified environmental factors likely responsible for driving microbial community differences between inshore and offshore locations using co-occurrence networks (NWs). The microbiome ofC. foliascensexhibited exceptionally high microbial richness, with more than 9,000 OTUs identified at 97% sequence similarity. A large biogeographic signal was evident at the OTU level despite similar phyla level diversity being observed across all geographic locations. TheC. foliascensbacterial community was primarily comprised ofGammaproteobacteria(34.2% ± 3.4%) andCyanobacteria(32.2% ± 3.5%), with lower abundances ofAlphaproteobacteria,Bacteroidetes, unidentifiedProteobacteria,Actinobacteria,AcidobacteriaandDeltaproteobacteria. Co-occurrence NWs revealed a consistent increase in the proportion ofCyanobacteriaoverBacteroidetesbetween turbid inshore and oligotrophic offshore locations, suggesting that the specialist microbiome ofC. foliascensis driven by environmental factors.
Electronic ISSN:
2167-8359
Topics:
Biology
,
Medicine
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