engleski

Relationship status: it's complicated - the love story of corals and microbes

Coral reefs are among the most biodiverse and complex ecosystems in the world. Corals, an integral part of reefs, in addition to symbiotic algae, are holobionts who host a diverse community of microorganisms composed of bacteria, archaea, fungi, protists, and microscopic eukaryotes. Microorganisms, primary drivers of biogeochemical cycling on corals, under the influence of environmental change, elapse shifts in community composition and, therefore, may cause bleaching, disease, and in the end, mortality of coral hosts. This study examined the bacterial community structure and its changes in the healthy and necrotic symbiotic corals species Cladocora caespitosa, Madracis pharensis, and Balanophyllia europaea, as well as non-symbiotic species Leptopsammia pruvoti, Eunicella cavolini and Paramuricea clavata. Coral samples alongside seawater samples have been collected within the protected areas of the Islands Mljet and Kornati. The community compositions were studied using 16S rDNA sequencing. Bacterial communities in corals and seawater differed, with the coral community being more diverse. Proteobacteria dominated all collected samples. Cyanobacteria and Verrucomicrobiota within the seawater community and Acidobacteriota, Actinobacteriota, and Planctomycetota within coral communities appeared in high abundance alongside Bacteroidota, which were highly present in all samples.

corals ; bacteria ; 16S rDNA ; seawater

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