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Biogeography and Host Fidelity of Bacterial Communities in Ircinia spp. from the Bahamas

  • Invertebrate Microbiology
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Abstract

Research on sponge microbial assemblages has revealed different trends in the geographic variability and specificity of bacterial symbionts. Here, we combined replicated terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) and clone library analyses of 16S rRNA gene sequences to investigate the biogeographic and host-specific structure of bacterial communities in two congeneric and sympatric sponges: Ircinia strobilina, two color morphs of Ircinia felix and ambient seawater. Samples were collected from five islands of the Bahamas separated by 80 to 400 km. T-RFLP profiles revealed significant differences in bacterial community structure among sponge hosts and ambient bacterioplankton. Pairwise statistical comparisons of clone libraries confirmed the specificity of the bacterial assemblages to each host species and differentiated symbiont communities between color morphs of I. felix. Overall, differences in bacterial communities within each host species and morph were unrelated to location. Our results show a high degree of symbiont fidelity to host sponge across a spatial scale of up to 400 km, suggesting that host-specific rather than biogeographic factors play a primary role in structuring and maintaining sponge–bacteria relationships in Ircinia species from the Bahamas.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the Spanish Government project CTM2010-17755, the Catalan Government grant 2009SGR-484 for Consolidated Research Groups, the US National Science Foundation under grant 0853089, and a FI-DGR fellowship to LP. Joseph R. Pawlik (University of North Carolina Wilmington, USA) financed usage of the UNOLS research vessel Walton Smith with the US National Science Foundation grant OCE 0550468.

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  1. Department of Animal Biology, University of Barcelona, Diagonal Avenue 643, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

    Lucía Pita, Susanna López-Legentil & Patrick M. Erwin

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  1. Lucía Pita
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Correspondence to Patrick M. Erwin.

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Pita, L., López-Legentil, S. & Erwin, P.M. Biogeography and Host Fidelity of Bacterial Communities in Ircinia spp. from the Bahamas. Microb Ecol 66, 437–447 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-013-0215-2

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