Deep sea treasures - Insights from museum archives shed light on coral microbial diversity within deepest ocean ecosystems
Deep sea benthic habitats are low productivity ecosystems that host an abundance of organisms within the Cnidaria phylum. The technical limitations and the high cost of deep sea surveys have made exploring deep sea environments and the biology of the organisms that inhabit them challenging. In spite...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
---|---|
Other Authors: | |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Elsevier
2024
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1500684 |
id |
ftunivnewcastnsw:uon:54983 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftunivnewcastnsw:uon:54983 2024-04-28T08:39:41+00:00 Deep sea treasures - Insights from museum archives shed light on coral microbial diversity within deepest ocean ecosystems Ricci, Francesco Leggat, William Pasella, Marisa M. Bridge, Tom Horowitz, Jeremy Girguis, Peter R. Ainsworth, Tracy The University of Newcastle. College of Engineering, Science & Environment, School of Environmental and Life Sciences 2024 http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1500684 eng eng Elsevier Heliyon Vol. 10, Issue 5, no. e27513 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e27513 http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1500684 uon:54983 ISSN:2405-8440 deep sea cyanobacteria deep water corals journal article 2024 ftunivnewcastnsw 2024-04-03T14:17:30Z Deep sea benthic habitats are low productivity ecosystems that host an abundance of organisms within the Cnidaria phylum. The technical limitations and the high cost of deep sea surveys have made exploring deep sea environments and the biology of the organisms that inhabit them challenging. In spite of the widespread recognition of Cnidaria's environmental importance in these ecosystems, the microbial assemblage and its role in coral functioning have only been studied for a few deep water corals. Here, we explored the microbial diversity of deep sea corals by recovering nucleic acids from museum archive specimens. Firstly, we amplified and sequenced the V1–V3 regions of the 16S rRNA gene of these specimens, then we utilized the generated sequences to shed light on the microbial diversity associated with seven families of corals collected from depth in the Coral Sea (depth range 1309 to 2959 m) and Southern Ocean (depth range 1401 to 2071 m) benthic habitats. Surprisingly, Cyanobacteria sequences were consistently associated with six out of seven coral families from both sampling locations, suggesting that these bacteria are potentially ubiquitous members of the microbiome within these cold and deep sea water corals. Additionally, we show that Cnidaria might benefit from symbiotic associations with a range of chemosynthetic bacteria including nitrite, carbon monoxide and sulfur oxidizers. Consistent with previous studies, we show that sequences associated with the bacterial phyla Proteobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, Planctomycetes and Acidobacteriota dominated the microbial community of corals in the deep sea. We also explored genomes of the bacterial genus Mycoplasma, which we identified as associated with specimens of three deep sea coral families, finding evidence that these bacteria may aid the host immune system. Importantly our results show that museum specimens retain components of host microbiome that can provide new insights into the diversity of deep sea coral microbiomes (and potentially other organisms), ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Southern Ocean NOVA: The University of Newcastle Research Online (Australia) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
NOVA: The University of Newcastle Research Online (Australia) |
op_collection_id |
ftunivnewcastnsw |
language |
English |
topic |
deep sea cyanobacteria deep water corals |
spellingShingle |
deep sea cyanobacteria deep water corals Ricci, Francesco Leggat, William Pasella, Marisa M. Bridge, Tom Horowitz, Jeremy Girguis, Peter R. Ainsworth, Tracy Deep sea treasures - Insights from museum archives shed light on coral microbial diversity within deepest ocean ecosystems |
topic_facet |
deep sea cyanobacteria deep water corals |
description |
Deep sea benthic habitats are low productivity ecosystems that host an abundance of organisms within the Cnidaria phylum. The technical limitations and the high cost of deep sea surveys have made exploring deep sea environments and the biology of the organisms that inhabit them challenging. In spite of the widespread recognition of Cnidaria's environmental importance in these ecosystems, the microbial assemblage and its role in coral functioning have only been studied for a few deep water corals. Here, we explored the microbial diversity of deep sea corals by recovering nucleic acids from museum archive specimens. Firstly, we amplified and sequenced the V1–V3 regions of the 16S rRNA gene of these specimens, then we utilized the generated sequences to shed light on the microbial diversity associated with seven families of corals collected from depth in the Coral Sea (depth range 1309 to 2959 m) and Southern Ocean (depth range 1401 to 2071 m) benthic habitats. Surprisingly, Cyanobacteria sequences were consistently associated with six out of seven coral families from both sampling locations, suggesting that these bacteria are potentially ubiquitous members of the microbiome within these cold and deep sea water corals. Additionally, we show that Cnidaria might benefit from symbiotic associations with a range of chemosynthetic bacteria including nitrite, carbon monoxide and sulfur oxidizers. Consistent with previous studies, we show that sequences associated with the bacterial phyla Proteobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, Planctomycetes and Acidobacteriota dominated the microbial community of corals in the deep sea. We also explored genomes of the bacterial genus Mycoplasma, which we identified as associated with specimens of three deep sea coral families, finding evidence that these bacteria may aid the host immune system. Importantly our results show that museum specimens retain components of host microbiome that can provide new insights into the diversity of deep sea coral microbiomes (and potentially other organisms), ... |
author2 |
The University of Newcastle. College of Engineering, Science & Environment, School of Environmental and Life Sciences |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Ricci, Francesco Leggat, William Pasella, Marisa M. Bridge, Tom Horowitz, Jeremy Girguis, Peter R. Ainsworth, Tracy |
author_facet |
Ricci, Francesco Leggat, William Pasella, Marisa M. Bridge, Tom Horowitz, Jeremy Girguis, Peter R. Ainsworth, Tracy |
author_sort |
Ricci, Francesco |
title |
Deep sea treasures - Insights from museum archives shed light on coral microbial diversity within deepest ocean ecosystems |
title_short |
Deep sea treasures - Insights from museum archives shed light on coral microbial diversity within deepest ocean ecosystems |
title_full |
Deep sea treasures - Insights from museum archives shed light on coral microbial diversity within deepest ocean ecosystems |
title_fullStr |
Deep sea treasures - Insights from museum archives shed light on coral microbial diversity within deepest ocean ecosystems |
title_full_unstemmed |
Deep sea treasures - Insights from museum archives shed light on coral microbial diversity within deepest ocean ecosystems |
title_sort |
deep sea treasures - insights from museum archives shed light on coral microbial diversity within deepest ocean ecosystems |
publisher |
Elsevier |
publishDate |
2024 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1500684 |
genre |
Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Southern Ocean |
op_relation |
Heliyon Vol. 10, Issue 5, no. e27513 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e27513 http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1500684 uon:54983 ISSN:2405-8440 |
_version_ |
1797570608847912960 |