Abstract
Investigation of the association between microbial communities in different compartments and the health status of coral hosts will support an in-depth understanding of the relationship between the microbial symbionts and coral health. In this study, next-generation sequencing of 16S ribosomal RNA genes (rDNA) and ribosomal RNA (rRNA) was used to characterize bacterial communities from the mucus and tissues of healthy and bleached Pocillopora damicornis. The cDNA (active bacterial members) and DNA (the total bacterial community) libraries of the same coral sample were similar, suggesting the fact that the bacteria inhabiting P. damicornis were active. Upon coral bleaching, the bacterial communities changed considerably in the tissue, but remained stable in the coral mucus layer. The relative abundance of Endozoicomonas decreased sharply in the bleached coral tissue. Presumably, microbial function based on the taxonomic compositions was accordingly changed in coral tissue, but not in the mucus layer, when the coral bleached. This study suggests that both rRNA- and rDNA-based methods for bacterial community analysis are fit for evaluating P. damicornis health implications. Furthermore, the results of this study demonstrate the differential responses of mucus- and tissue-associated bacterial communities to coral bleaching.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during the current study have been deposited and are publicly available in the Sequence Read Archive repository under BioProject ID PRJNA732546.
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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41676155, 42122045, and 41890853), Guangdong Natural Science Funds for Distinguished Young Scholars (2017A030306025), and K. C. Wong Education Foundation (GJTD-2020-12).
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J.L. and S.Z. conceived this study. Y.Z. and J.L. performed the analyses. Y.Z., J.L., Y.C., and L.W. drafted the manuscript, and all authors commented on the manuscript and made suggestions.
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Zou, Y., Chen, Y., Wang, L. et al. Differential responses of bacterial communities in coral tissue and mucus to bleaching. Coral Reefs 41, 951–960 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-022-02261-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-022-02261-8