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Black Band Disease Microbial Community Variation on Corals in Three Regions of the Wider Caribbean

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Abstract

Black band disease (BBD) is a pathogenic consortium of microorganisms that primarily affects massive framework-building scleractinian corals on reefs worldwide. There has been considerable debate concerning the microbial community composition of BBD. The aim of this study was to utilize microbial profiling to assess overall patterns of variation in the BBD bacterial community with respect to geographic location, host coral species, time, and nutrient regime. Length heterogeneity polymerase chain reaction (LH-PCR) was employed to differentiate BBD communities based on the natural variation in the sequence lengths within hypervariable domains of the 16S rRNA gene. Analysis of LH-PCR profiles of 97 BBD samples using multivariate ordination methods and analysis of similarity revealed significant clustering with respect to geographic region when comparing BBD sampled from reefs near Lee Stocking Island in the Bahamas’ Exuma Chain, the Northern Florida Keys (NFK), and St. John in the US Virgin Islands. There was much variability in BBD community composition on a regional basis, between sites in the NFK, and in terms of coral host species. The observed differences among BBD microbial community profiles were driven primarily by variation in relative abundance of 313–316-bp amplicons, which correspond to cyanobacteria and α-proteobacteria. The results obtained in this study support previous reports of intrinsic variability and complexity of the BBD microbial community but also suggest that this variability has biogeographic patterns.

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Acknowledgments

We thank J. Pinzón for field assistance, E. Muller and C. Rogers for providing samples from the USVI, M. Gantar for isolating and providing non-BBD cyanbacteria, L. Moreno for assistance with GeneMapper® software, and R. Saporito and C. Ruehl, whose comments helped improve this manuscript. Sample collections in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) and Bahamas were carried out under National Marine Sanctuary permit FKNMS-2003-011 and Bahamian Department of Fisheries permit MAF/FIS/79, respectively. This research was funded by an Environmental Protection Agency Science to Achieve Results–Minority Academic Institutions graduate fellowship to JV (U-91608601-0), two grants from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Caribbean Marine Research Center (Projects CMRC-04-PRJV-01-04C, CMRC-05-PRJV-01-05C) to JV and LR, a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Budweiser Conservation Fellowship to JV, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration National Undersea Research Program (FKRP-2004-11 to LR), the National Institutes of Health (NIH/NIGMS SO6GM8205 to LR and DM), and the National Science Foundation (in part, NSF ADVANCE 0340695 to DM). This is contribution 121 from the Tropical Biology Program at Florida International University.

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Author notes

  1. Joshua D. Voss

    Present address: Department of Marine Science, Eckerd College, 4200 54th Ave, S. St., Petersburg, FL, 33711, USA

  2. Elizabeth R. Remily

    Present address: H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, Molecular Oncology Department, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, 33612, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, FL, 33199, USA

    Joshua D. Voss, DeEtta K. Mills, Jamie L. Myers, Elizabeth R. Remily & Laurie L. Richardson

  2. International Forensic Research Institute, Florida International University, Miami, FL, 33199, USA

    DeEtta K. Mills

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  1. Joshua D. Voss
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Correspondence to Joshua D. Voss.

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Voss, J.D., Mills, D.K., Myers, J.L. et al. Black Band Disease Microbial Community Variation on Corals in Three Regions of the Wider Caribbean. Microb Ecol 54, 730–739 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-007-9234-1

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