Distribution and Diversity of Archaeal Ammonia Monooxygenase Genes Associated with Corals

J.Michael Beman; Kathryn J. Roberts; Linda Wegley; Forest Rohwer; Christopher A. Francis

doi:10.1128/aem.00461-07

Distribution and Diversity of Archaeal Ammonia Monooxygenase Genes Associated with Corals

Applied and Environmental Microbiology ◽

10.1128/aem.00461-07 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 73 (17) ◽

pp. 5642-5647 ◽

Cited By ~ 89

Author(s):

J.Michael Beman ◽

Kathryn J. Roberts ◽

Linda Wegley ◽

Forest Rohwer ◽

Christopher A. Francis

Keyword(s):

Coral Reefs ◽

Microbial Communities ◽

Coral Species ◽

Estuarine Sediments ◽

Ammonia Monooxygenase ◽

Oceanic Water ◽

Ecological Role ◽

Bocas Del Toro ◽

Water Columns

ABSTRACT Corals are known to harbor diverse microbial communities of Bacteria and Archaea, yet the ecological role of these microorganisms remains largely unknown. Here we report putative ammonia monooxygenase subunit A (amoA) genes of archaeal origin associated with corals. Multiple DNA samples drawn from nine coral species and four different reef locations were PCR screened for archaeal and bacterial amoA genes, and archaeal amoA gene sequences were obtained from five different species of coral collected in Bocas del Toro, Panama. The 210 coral-associated archaeal amoA sequences recovered in this study were broadly distributed phylogenetically, with most only distantly related to previously reported sequences from coastal/estuarine sediments and oceanic water columns. In contrast, the bacterial amoA gene could not be amplified from any of these samples. These results offer further evidence for the widespread presence of the archaeal amoA gene in marine ecosystems, including coral reefs.

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Morphological stasis masks ecologically divergent coral species on tropical reefs

10.1101/2020.09.04.260208 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

P Bongaerts ◽

IR Cooke ◽

H Ying ◽

D Wels ◽

S Haan den ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Coral Reefs ◽

Coral Species ◽

Common Garden ◽

Genomic Signatures ◽

Morphological Stasis ◽

Sequencing Studies ◽

Demographic Modelling ◽

Whole Genome Resequencing ◽

Taxonomic Framework

ABSTRACTCoral reefs are the epitome of species diversity, yet the number of described scleractinian coral species, the framework-builders of coral reefs, remains moderate by comparison. DNA sequencing studies are rapidly challenging this notion by exposing a wealth of undescribed diversity, but the evolutionary and ecological significance of this diversity remains largely unclear. Here, we present an annotated genome for one of the most ubiquitous corals in the Indo-Pacific (Pachyseris speciosa), and uncover through a comprehensive genomic and phenotypic assessment that it comprises morphologically indistinguishable, but ecologically divergent cryptic lineages. Demographic modelling based on whole-genome resequencing disproved that morphological crypsis was due to recent divergence, and instead indicated ancient morphological stasis. Although the lineages occur sympatrically across shallow and mesophotic habitats, extensive genotyping using a rapid diagnostic assay revealed differentiation of their ecological distributions. Leveraging “common garden” conditions facilitated by the overlapping distributions, we assessed physiological and quantitative skeletal traits and demonstrated concurrent phenotypic differentiation. Lastly, spawning observations of genotyped colonies highlighted the potential role of temporal reproductive isolation in the limited admixture, with consistent genomic signatures in genes related to morphogenesis and reproduction. Overall, our findings demonstrate how ecologically and phenotypically divergent coral species can evolve despite morphological stasis, and provide new leads into the potential mechanisms facilitating such divergence in sympatry. More broadly, they indicate that our current taxonomic framework for reef-building corals may be scratching the surface of the ecologically relevant diversity on coral reefs, consequently limiting our ability to protect or restore this diversity effectively.

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Quorum-Sensing Signals from Epibiont Mediate the Induction of Novel Microviridins in the Mat-Forming Cyanobacterial Genus Nostoc

mSphere ◽

10.1128/msphere.00562-21 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Subhasish Saha ◽

Paul-Adrian Bulzu ◽

Petra Urajová ◽

Jan Mareš ◽

Grzegorz Konert ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Quorum Sensing ◽

Microbial Communities ◽

Chemical Communication ◽

Cyanobacterial Blooms ◽

Ecological Role ◽

Initial Stage ◽

Harmful Cyanobacterial Blooms ◽

Quorum Sensing Signals ◽

Cyanobacterial Genus

The regulation of the production of cyanopeptides beyond microcystin is essential to understand their ecological role in complex microbial communities, e.g., harmful cyanobacterial blooms. The role of chemical communication between the cyanobacterium and the epibionts within its phycosphere is at an initial stage of research, and little is understood about its specificity.

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Quorum sensing signals from epibiont mediate the induction of bioactive peptides in mat-forming cyanobacteria Nostoc

10.1101/2021.04.23.441229 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Subhasish Saha ◽

Paul-Adrian Bulzu ◽

Petra Urajová ◽

Jan Mareš ◽

Grzegorz Konert ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Quorum Sensing ◽

Microbial Communities ◽

Chemical Communication ◽

Bacterial Flora ◽

Cyanobacterial Blooms ◽

Signal Molecules ◽

Ecological Role ◽

Initial Stage ◽

Harmful Cyanobacterial Blooms

ABSTRACTThe regulation of oligopeptides production is essential in understanding their ecological role in complex microbial communities including harmful cyanobacterial blooms. The role of chemical communication between the cyanobacterium and the microbial community harboured as epibionts within its phycosphere is at an initial stage of research and little is understood about its specificity. Herein, we present insight into the role of a bacterial epibiont in regulating production of cyanobacterial oligopeptides microviridins, well-known elastase inhibitors with presumed anti-grazing effects, in an ecologically important cyanobacterial genus Nostoc. Heterologous expression and identification of specific signal molecules from the epibiont suggest the role of a quorum sensing-based interaction. Further, physiological experiments show an increase in microviridin production without affecting cyanobacterial growth and photosynthetic activity. Simultaneously, oligopeptides presenting a selective inhibition pattern provide support for their specific function in response to the presence of cohabitant epibionts. Thus, the chemical interaction revealed in our study provides an example of an interspecies signalling pathway monitoring the bacterial flora around the cyanobacterial filaments and induction of intrinsic species-specific metabolic responses.IMPORTANCEThe regulation of cyanopeptide production beyond microcystin is essential to understand their ecological role in complex microbial communities, e.g. harmful cyanobacterial blooms. The role of chemical communication between the cyanobacterium and the epibionts within its phycosphere is at an initial stage of research and little is understood about its specificity. The frequency of cyanopeptide occurrence also demonstrates the need to understand the contribution of cyanobacterial peptides to the overall biological impact of cyanopeptides on aquatic organisms and vertebrates including humans. Our results shed light on the epibiont control of cyanopeptide production via quorum sensing mechanisms and we posit that such mechanisms may be widespread in natural cyanobacterial bloom community regulation.

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The Future of Quantitative Viral Ecology

Quantitative Viral Ecology ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691161549.003.0008 ◽

2016 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Joshua S. Weitz

Keyword(s):

Inverse Problems ◽

Microbial Communities ◽

Evolutionary Dynamics ◽

Ecological Role ◽

Viral Ecology ◽

Forward Problems ◽

The Future

This chapter presents a perspective on the types of developments, both technical and theoretical, that are forthcoming and the influence they are likely to have in shaping our view of the diversity and functions of environmental viruses. It focuses on theoretical challenges of two kinds: “forward” problems and “inverse” problems. It argues that for purely technological reasons, many measurements in viral ecology have not been comparable, in a quantitative sense. Moreover, there have been relatively few attempts to integrate what virus ecologists have measured into models of microbial communities. Whatever integration has occurred has focused almost exclusively on lab-based population and evolutionary dynamics. There is a pressing need to understand the ecological role of viruses of microbes, which requires an increasing number of theorists to investigate the interactions between microbes and the viruses that infect them.

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The Ecological Role of Sharks on Coral Reefs

Trends in Ecology & Evolution ◽

10.1016/j.tree.2016.02.014 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 31 (5) ◽

pp. 395-407 ◽

Cited By ~ 105

Author(s):

George Roff ◽

Christopher Doropoulos ◽

Alice Rogers ◽

Yves-Marie Bozec ◽

Nils C. Krueck ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Coral Reefs ◽

Ecological Role

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The role of zooxanthellae in the thermal tolerance of corals: a ‘nugget of hope’ for coral reefs in an era of climate change

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2006.3567 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 273 (1599) ◽

pp. 2305-2312 ◽

Cited By ~ 645

Author(s):

Ray Berkelmans ◽

Madeleine J.H van Oppen

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Coral Reefs ◽

Thermal Tolerance ◽

Coral Species ◽

Experimental Manipulation ◽

Direct Result ◽

Symbiont Type ◽

Thermal Acclimatization ◽

Highly Sensitive

The ability of coral reefs to survive the projected increases in temperature due to global warming will depend largely on the ability of corals to adapt or acclimatize to increased temperature extremes over the next few decades. Many coral species are highly sensitive to temperature stress and the number of stress (bleaching) episodes has increased in recent decades. We investigated the acclimatization potential of Acropora millepora , a common and widespread Indo-Pacific hard coral species, through transplantation and experimental manipulation. We show that adult corals, at least in some circumstances, are capable of acquiring increased thermal tolerance and that the increased tolerance is a direct result of a change in the symbiont type dominating their tissues from Symbiodinium type C to D. Our data suggest that the change in symbiont type in our experiment was due to a shuffling of existing types already present in coral tissues, not through exogenous uptake from the environment. The level of increased tolerance gained by the corals changing their dominant symbiont type to D (the most thermally resistant type known) is around 1–1.5 °C. This is the first study to show that thermal acclimatization is causally related to symbiont type and provides new insight into the ecological advantage of corals harbouring mixed algal populations. While this increase is of huge ecological significance for many coral species, in the absence of other mechanisms of thermal acclimatization/adaptation, it may not be sufficient to survive climate change under predicted sea surface temperature scenarios over the next 100 years. However, it may be enough to ‘buy time’ while greenhouse reduction measures are put in place.

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