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Concordance of microbial and visual health indicators of white-band disease in nursery reared Caribbean coral Acropora cervicornis

BACKGROUND: Coral diseases are one of the leading causes of declines in coral populations. In the Caribbean, white band disease (WBD) has led to a substantial loss of Acropora corals. Although the etiologies of this disease have not been well described, characterizing the coral microbiome during the...

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Autores principales: Schul, Monica D., Anastasious, Dagny-Elise, Spiers, Lindsay J., Meyer, Julie L., Frazer, Thomas K., Brown, Anya L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10290447/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37361046
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15170
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author Schul, Monica D.
Anastasious, Dagny-Elise
Spiers, Lindsay J.
Meyer, Julie L.
Frazer, Thomas K.
Brown, Anya L.
author_facet Schul, Monica D.
Anastasious, Dagny-Elise
Spiers, Lindsay J.
Meyer, Julie L.
Frazer, Thomas K.
Brown, Anya L.
author_sort Schul, Monica D.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Coral diseases are one of the leading causes of declines in coral populations. In the Caribbean, white band disease (WBD) has led to a substantial loss of Acropora corals. Although the etiologies of this disease have not been well described, characterizing the coral microbiome during the transition from a healthy to diseased state is critical for understanding disease progression. Coral nurseries provide unique opportunities to further understand the microbial changes associated with diseased and healthy corals, because corals are monitored over time. We characterized the microbiomes before and during an outbreak of WBD in Acropora cervicornis reared in an ocean nursery in Little Cayman, CI. We asked (1) do healthy corals show the same microbiome over time (before and during a disease outbreak) and (2) are there disease signatures on both lesioned and apparently healthy tissues on diseased coral colonies? METHODS: Microbial mucus-tissue slurries were collected from healthy coral colonies in 2017 (before the disease) and 2019 (during the disease onset). Diseased colonies were sampled at two separate locations on an individual coral colony: at the interface of Disease and ∼10 cm away on Apparently Healthy coral tissue. We sequenced the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene to characterize bacterial and archaeal community composition in nursery-reared A. cervicornis. We assessed alpha diversity, beta diversity, and compositional differences to determine differences in microbial assemblages across health states (2019) and healthy corals between years (2017 and 2019). RESULTS: Microbial communities from healthy A. cervicornis from 2017 (before disease) and 2019 (after disease) did not differ significantly. Additionally, microbial communities from Apparently Healthy samples on an otherwise diseased coral colony were more similar to Healthy colonies than to the diseased portion on the same colony for both alpha diversity and community composition. Microbial communities from Diseased tissues had significantly higher alpha diversity than both Healthy and Apparently Healthy tissues but showed no significant difference in beta-diversity dispersion. Our results show that at the population scale, Healthy and Apparently Healthy coral tissues are distinct from microbial communities associated with Diseased tissues. Furthermore, our results suggest stability in Little Cayman nursery coral microbiomes over time. We show healthy Caymanian nursery corals had a stable microbiome over a two-year period, an important benchmark for evaluating coral health via their microbiome.
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spelling pubmed-102904472023-06-25 Concordance of microbial and visual health indicators of white-band disease in nursery reared Caribbean coral Acropora cervicornis Schul, Monica D. Anastasious, Dagny-Elise Spiers, Lindsay J. Meyer, Julie L. Frazer, Thomas K. Brown, Anya L. PeerJ Ecology BACKGROUND: Coral diseases are one of the leading causes of declines in coral populations. In the Caribbean, white band disease (WBD) has led to a substantial loss of Acropora corals. Although the etiologies of this disease have not been well described, characterizing the coral microbiome during the transition from a healthy to diseased state is critical for understanding disease progression. Coral nurseries provide unique opportunities to further understand the microbial changes associated with diseased and healthy corals, because corals are monitored over time. We characterized the microbiomes before and during an outbreak of WBD in Acropora cervicornis reared in an ocean nursery in Little Cayman, CI. We asked (1) do healthy corals show the same microbiome over time (before and during a disease outbreak) and (2) are there disease signatures on both lesioned and apparently healthy tissues on diseased coral colonies? METHODS: Microbial mucus-tissue slurries were collected from healthy coral colonies in 2017 (before the disease) and 2019 (during the disease onset). Diseased colonies were sampled at two separate locations on an individual coral colony: at the interface of Disease and ∼10 cm away on Apparently Healthy coral tissue. We sequenced the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene to characterize bacterial and archaeal community composition in nursery-reared A. cervicornis. We assessed alpha diversity, beta diversity, and compositional differences to determine differences in microbial assemblages across health states (2019) and healthy corals between years (2017 and 2019). RESULTS: Microbial communities from healthy A. cervicornis from 2017 (before disease) and 2019 (after disease) did not differ significantly. Additionally, microbial communities from Apparently Healthy samples on an otherwise diseased coral colony were more similar to Healthy colonies than to the diseased portion on the same colony for both alpha diversity and community composition. Microbial communities from Diseased tissues had significantly higher alpha diversity than both Healthy and Apparently Healthy tissues but showed no significant difference in beta-diversity dispersion. Our results show that at the population scale, Healthy and Apparently Healthy coral tissues are distinct from microbial communities associated with Diseased tissues. Furthermore, our results suggest stability in Little Cayman nursery coral microbiomes over time. We show healthy Caymanian nursery corals had a stable microbiome over a two-year period, an important benchmark for evaluating coral health via their microbiome. PeerJ Inc. 2023-06-21 /pmc/articles/PMC10290447/ /pubmed/37361046 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15170 Text en ©2023 Schul et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Ecology
Schul, Monica D.
Anastasious, Dagny-Elise
Spiers, Lindsay J.
Meyer, Julie L.
Frazer, Thomas K.
Brown, Anya L.
Concordance of microbial and visual health indicators of white-band disease in nursery reared Caribbean coral Acropora cervicornis
title Concordance of microbial and visual health indicators of white-band disease in nursery reared Caribbean coral Acropora cervicornis
title_full Concordance of microbial and visual health indicators of white-band disease in nursery reared Caribbean coral Acropora cervicornis
title_fullStr Concordance of microbial and visual health indicators of white-band disease in nursery reared Caribbean coral Acropora cervicornis
title_full_unstemmed Concordance of microbial and visual health indicators of white-band disease in nursery reared Caribbean coral Acropora cervicornis
title_short Concordance of microbial and visual health indicators of white-band disease in nursery reared Caribbean coral Acropora cervicornis
title_sort concordance of microbial and visual health indicators of white-band disease in nursery reared caribbean coral acropora cervicornis
topic Ecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10290447/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37361046
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15170
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