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Comparison of the Bacterial Communities of Wild and Captive Sponge Clathria prolifera from the Chesapeake Bay

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Abstract

The red-beard sponge Clathria prolifera, which is widely distributed in the USA, has been widely used as a model system in cell biology and has been proposed as a suitable teaching tool on biology and environmental sciences. We undertook the first detailed microbiological study of this sponge on samples collected from the Chesapeake Bay. A combination of culture-based studies, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, and bacterial community characterization based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed that C. prolifera contains a diverse assemblage of bacteria that is different from that in the surrounding water. C. prolifera individuals were successfully maintained in a flow-through or recirculation aquaculture system for over 6 months and shifts in the bacterial assemblages of sponges in aquaculture compared with wild sponges were examined. The proteobacteria, bacteroidetes, actinobacteria, and cyanobacteria represented over 90% of the species diversity present in the total bacterial community of the wild C. prolifera. Actinobacteria, cyanobacteria, and spirochetes were not represented in clones obtained from C. prolifera maintained in the aquaculture system although these three groups comprised ca. 20% of the clones from wild C. prolifera, showing a significant effect of aquaculture on the bacterial community composition. This is the first systematic characterization of the bacterial community from a sponge found in the Chesapeake Bay. Changes in sponge bacterial composition were observed in sponges maintained in aquaculture and demonstrate the importance of monitoring microbial communities when cultivating sponges in aquaculture systems.

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Acknowledgments

George Burbanck and Robert Jordan at Hampton University are thanked for assistance in Chesapeake Bay collections. LTI was supported by Goucher College during a sabbatical leave. Her research was supported by a Florence Seibert Research Fellowship, a Goucher College faculty development grant, and the MacLane-To fund. TLW was funded by the NIGMS Bridges to the Baccalaureate grant GM62005. LN and PV participated in the project as part of a Directed Research course in Microbiology at Goucher College. Funding for this study was provided by the Microbial Observatories Program, National Science Foundation (MCB-0238515 and 0703467), and this support is gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. Jinjun Kan

    Present address: Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Goucher College, Baltimore, MD, 21204, USA

    LeLeng To Isaacs, Linh Nguyen, Patrick Videau & Toby L. Wright

  2. Center of Marine Biotechnology, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, Columbus Center Suite 236, 701 E. Pratt Street, Baltimore, MD, 21202, USA

    Jinjun Kan, Matthew A. Anderson, Toby L. Wright & Russell T. Hill

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  1. LeLeng To Isaacs
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Correspondence to Russell T. Hill.

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Contribution no. 07-118 from the Center of Marine Biotechnology.

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Isaacs, L.T., Kan, J., Nguyen, L. et al. Comparison of the Bacterial Communities of Wild and Captive Sponge Clathria prolifera from the Chesapeake Bay. Mar Biotechnol 11, 758–770 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-009-9192-3

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