Coral mucus fuels the sponge loop in warm- and cold-water coral reef ecosystems
Shallow warm-water and deep-sea cold-water corals engineer the coral reef framework and fertilize reef communities by releasing coral mucus, a source of reef dissolved organic matter (DOM). By transforming DOM into particulate detritus, sponges play a key role in transferring the energy and nutrient...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4703987 2023-05-15T17:33:38+02:00 Coral mucus fuels the sponge loop in warm- and cold-water coral reef ecosystems Rix, Laura de Goeij, Jasper M. Mueller, Christina E. Struck, Ulrich Middelburg, Jack J. van Duyl, Fleur C. Al-Horani, Fuad A. Wild, Christian Naumann, Malik S. van Oevelen, Dick 2016-01-07 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4703987/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26740019 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep18715 en eng Nature Publishing Group http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4703987/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26740019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep18715 Copyright © 2016, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY Article Text 2016 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/srep18715 2016-01-24T01:15:15Z Shallow warm-water and deep-sea cold-water corals engineer the coral reef framework and fertilize reef communities by releasing coral mucus, a source of reef dissolved organic matter (DOM). By transforming DOM into particulate detritus, sponges play a key role in transferring the energy and nutrients in DOM to higher trophic levels on Caribbean reefs via the so-called sponge loop. Coral mucus may be a major DOM source for the sponge loop, but mucus uptake by sponges has not been demonstrated. Here we used laboratory stable isotope tracer experiments to show the transfer of coral mucus into the bulk tissue and phospholipid fatty acids of the warm-water sponge Mycale fistulifera and cold-water sponge Hymedesmia coriacea, demonstrating a direct trophic link between corals and reef sponges. Furthermore, 21–40% of the mucus carbon and 32–39% of the nitrogen assimilated by the sponges was subsequently released as detritus, confirming a sponge loop on Red Sea warm-water and north Atlantic cold-water coral reefs. The presence of a sponge loop in two vastly different reef environments suggests it is a ubiquitous feature of reef ecosystems contributing to the high biogeochemical cycling that may enable coral reefs to thrive in nutrient-limited (warm-water) and energy-limited (cold-water) environments. Text North Atlantic PubMed Central (PMC) Scientific Reports 6 1 |
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Article Rix, Laura de Goeij, Jasper M. Mueller, Christina E. Struck, Ulrich Middelburg, Jack J. van Duyl, Fleur C. Al-Horani, Fuad A. Wild, Christian Naumann, Malik S. van Oevelen, Dick Coral mucus fuels the sponge loop in warm- and cold-water coral reef ecosystems |
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Shallow warm-water and deep-sea cold-water corals engineer the coral reef framework and fertilize reef communities by releasing coral mucus, a source of reef dissolved organic matter (DOM). By transforming DOM into particulate detritus, sponges play a key role in transferring the energy and nutrients in DOM to higher trophic levels on Caribbean reefs via the so-called sponge loop. Coral mucus may be a major DOM source for the sponge loop, but mucus uptake by sponges has not been demonstrated. Here we used laboratory stable isotope tracer experiments to show the transfer of coral mucus into the bulk tissue and phospholipid fatty acids of the warm-water sponge Mycale fistulifera and cold-water sponge Hymedesmia coriacea, demonstrating a direct trophic link between corals and reef sponges. Furthermore, 21–40% of the mucus carbon and 32–39% of the nitrogen assimilated by the sponges was subsequently released as detritus, confirming a sponge loop on Red Sea warm-water and north Atlantic cold-water coral reefs. The presence of a sponge loop in two vastly different reef environments suggests it is a ubiquitous feature of reef ecosystems contributing to the high biogeochemical cycling that may enable coral reefs to thrive in nutrient-limited (warm-water) and energy-limited (cold-water) environments. |
format |
Text |
author |
Rix, Laura de Goeij, Jasper M. Mueller, Christina E. Struck, Ulrich Middelburg, Jack J. van Duyl, Fleur C. Al-Horani, Fuad A. Wild, Christian Naumann, Malik S. van Oevelen, Dick |
author_facet |
Rix, Laura de Goeij, Jasper M. Mueller, Christina E. Struck, Ulrich Middelburg, Jack J. van Duyl, Fleur C. Al-Horani, Fuad A. Wild, Christian Naumann, Malik S. van Oevelen, Dick |
author_sort |
Rix, Laura |
title |
Coral mucus fuels the sponge loop in warm- and cold-water coral reef ecosystems |
title_short |
Coral mucus fuels the sponge loop in warm- and cold-water coral reef ecosystems |
title_full |
Coral mucus fuels the sponge loop in warm- and cold-water coral reef ecosystems |
title_fullStr |
Coral mucus fuels the sponge loop in warm- and cold-water coral reef ecosystems |
title_full_unstemmed |
Coral mucus fuels the sponge loop in warm- and cold-water coral reef ecosystems |
title_sort |
coral mucus fuels the sponge loop in warm- and cold-water coral reef ecosystems |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4703987/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26740019 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep18715 |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4703987/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26740019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep18715 |
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Copyright © 2016, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
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CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep18715 |
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Scientific Reports |
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