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Title: Comparing bacterial community composition of healthy and dark spot-affected Siderastrea siderea in Florida and the Caribbean

Journal Article · · PLoS ONE
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [2];  [4]
  1. U.S. Geological Survey, St. Petersburg, FL (United States). St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center.
  2. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  3. Second Genome, Inc., San Bruno, CA (United States)
  4. Missouri Univ. of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Coral disease is one of the major causes of reef degradation. Dark Spot Syndrome (DSS) was described in the early 1990's as brown or purple amorphous areas of tissue on a coral and has since become one of the most prevalent diseases reported on Caribbean reefs. It has been identified in a number of coral species, but there is debate as to whether it is in fact the same disease in different corals. Further, it is questioned whether these macroscopic signs are in fact diagnostic of an infectious disease at all. The most commonly affected species in the Caribbean is the massive starlet coral Siderastrea siderea. We sampled this species in two locations, Dry Tortugas National Park and Virgin Islands National Park. Tissue biopsies were collected from both healthy colonies and those with dark spot lesions. Microbial-community DNA was extracted from coral samples (mucus, tissue, and skeleton), amplified using bacterial-specific primers, and applied to PhyloChip G3 microarrays to examine the bacterial diversity associated with this coral. Samples were also screened for the presence of a fungal ribotype that has recently been implicated as a causative agent of DSS in another coral species, but the amplifications were unsuccessful. S. siderea samples did not cluster consistently based on health state (i.e., normal versus dark spot). Various bacteria, including Cyanobacteria and Vibrios, were observed to have increased relative abundance in the discolored tissue, but the patterns were not consistent across all DSS samples. Overall, our findings do not support the hypothesis that DSS in S. siderea is linked to a bacterial pathogen or pathogens. This dataset provides the most comprehensive overview to date of the bacterial community associated with the scleractinian coral S. siderea.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
United States Geological Survey’s Coastal and Marine Geology Program; USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1212453
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1214366
Journal Information:
PLoS ONE, Vol. 9, Issue 10; ISSN 1932-6203
Publisher:
Public Library of ScienceCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 17 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (10)

Diseases of Coral Reef Organisms book January 2015
Long-term salinity tolerance is accompanied by major restructuring of the coral bacterial microbiome journal March 2016
Optimization of DNA extraction for advancing coral microbiota investigations journal February 2017
Advanced biofilm analysis in streams receiving organic deicer runoff journal January 2020
Corals and Their Microbiomes Are Differentially Affected by Exposure to Elevated Nutrients and a Natural Thermal Anomaly journal March 2018
Microbial Diversity Exploration of Marine Hosts at Serrana Bank, a Coral Atoll of the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve journal June 2019
Pyrosequencing of the bacteria associated with Platygyra carnosus corals with skeletal growth anomalies reveals differences in bacterial community composition in apparently healthy and diseased tissues journal October 2015
Bacterial community diversity of the deep-sea octocoral Paramuricea placomus journal January 2016
Inter-domain microbial diversity within the coral holobiont Siderastrea siderea from two depth habitats journal January 2018
Epimicrobiota Associated with the Decay and Recovery of Orbicella Corals Exhibiting Dark Spot Syndrome journal June 2016

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Related Subjects

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
corals
coral reefs
bacterial pathogens
microarrays
Virgin Islands
ribosomal RNA
DNA extraction
fungal genetics