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Significant Changes in Bacterial Communities Associated with Pocillopora Corals Ingestion by Crown-of-Thorns Starfish: An Important Factor Affecting the Coral’s Health

Coral ingestion by crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) is an important cause of coral reef degradation, although the impacts of COTS feeding on coral-associated microbial communities are not well understood. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed the coral tissue-weight, Symbiodiniaceae density (SD), bac...

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Autores principales: Qin, Zhenjun, Yu, Kefu, Chen, Shuchang, Chen, Biao, Yao, Qiucui, Yu, Xiaopeng, Pan, Nengbin, Wei, Xuelu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8879049/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35208662
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms10020207
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author Qin, Zhenjun
Yu, Kefu
Chen, Shuchang
Chen, Biao
Yao, Qiucui
Yu, Xiaopeng
Pan, Nengbin
Wei, Xuelu
author_facet Qin, Zhenjun
Yu, Kefu
Chen, Shuchang
Chen, Biao
Yao, Qiucui
Yu, Xiaopeng
Pan, Nengbin
Wei, Xuelu
author_sort Qin, Zhenjun
collection PubMed
description Coral ingestion by crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) is an important cause of coral reef degradation, although the impacts of COTS feeding on coral-associated microbial communities are not well understood. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed the coral tissue-weight, Symbiodiniaceae density (SD), bacterial community composition, and the predicted functions of bacterial genes associated with Pocillopora corals in healthy portions and feeding scars, following COTS feeding. Coral tissue-weight loss rate in the feeding scars was 71.3–94.95%. The SDs were significantly lower in the feeding scars, and the SD-loss rate was 92.05% ± 2.12%. The relative abundances of bacterial communities associated with Pocillopora corals after COTS feeding changed significantly and were almost completely reorganized at the phylum and genus levels. Analysis of the microbial metagenomic-functional capacities showed that numerous physiological functions of the coral-bacterial holobionts in the feeding scars were different, including amino acid metabolism, xenobiotic biodegradation and metabolism, lipid metabolism, membrane transport, signal transduction, and cell motility, and all these capacities could be corroborated based on metagenomic, transcriptomic or proteomic technologies. Overall, our research suggests that coral holobionts may be destroyed by COTS, and our findings imply that bacterial communities in feeding scars could affect the health of Pocillopora corals.
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spelling pubmed-88790492022-02-26 Significant Changes in Bacterial Communities Associated with Pocillopora Corals Ingestion by Crown-of-Thorns Starfish: An Important Factor Affecting the Coral’s Health Qin, Zhenjun Yu, Kefu Chen, Shuchang Chen, Biao Yao, Qiucui Yu, Xiaopeng Pan, Nengbin Wei, Xuelu Microorganisms Article Coral ingestion by crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) is an important cause of coral reef degradation, although the impacts of COTS feeding on coral-associated microbial communities are not well understood. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed the coral tissue-weight, Symbiodiniaceae density (SD), bacterial community composition, and the predicted functions of bacterial genes associated with Pocillopora corals in healthy portions and feeding scars, following COTS feeding. Coral tissue-weight loss rate in the feeding scars was 71.3–94.95%. The SDs were significantly lower in the feeding scars, and the SD-loss rate was 92.05% ± 2.12%. The relative abundances of bacterial communities associated with Pocillopora corals after COTS feeding changed significantly and were almost completely reorganized at the phylum and genus levels. Analysis of the microbial metagenomic-functional capacities showed that numerous physiological functions of the coral-bacterial holobionts in the feeding scars were different, including amino acid metabolism, xenobiotic biodegradation and metabolism, lipid metabolism, membrane transport, signal transduction, and cell motility, and all these capacities could be corroborated based on metagenomic, transcriptomic or proteomic technologies. Overall, our research suggests that coral holobionts may be destroyed by COTS, and our findings imply that bacterial communities in feeding scars could affect the health of Pocillopora corals. MDPI 2022-01-19 /pmc/articles/PMC8879049/ /pubmed/35208662 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms10020207 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Qin, Zhenjun
Yu, Kefu
Chen, Shuchang
Chen, Biao
Yao, Qiucui
Yu, Xiaopeng
Pan, Nengbin
Wei, Xuelu
Significant Changes in Bacterial Communities Associated with Pocillopora Corals Ingestion by Crown-of-Thorns Starfish: An Important Factor Affecting the Coral’s Health
title Significant Changes in Bacterial Communities Associated with Pocillopora Corals Ingestion by Crown-of-Thorns Starfish: An Important Factor Affecting the Coral’s Health
title_full Significant Changes in Bacterial Communities Associated with Pocillopora Corals Ingestion by Crown-of-Thorns Starfish: An Important Factor Affecting the Coral’s Health
title_fullStr Significant Changes in Bacterial Communities Associated with Pocillopora Corals Ingestion by Crown-of-Thorns Starfish: An Important Factor Affecting the Coral’s Health
title_full_unstemmed Significant Changes in Bacterial Communities Associated with Pocillopora Corals Ingestion by Crown-of-Thorns Starfish: An Important Factor Affecting the Coral’s Health
title_short Significant Changes in Bacterial Communities Associated with Pocillopora Corals Ingestion by Crown-of-Thorns Starfish: An Important Factor Affecting the Coral’s Health
title_sort significant changes in bacterial communities associated with pocillopora corals ingestion by crown-of-thorns starfish: an important factor affecting the coral’s health
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8879049/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35208662
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms10020207
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