Parrotfish predation drives distinct microbial communities in reef-building corals

A number of marine invertebrates and fishes were suspected to vector and or facilitate the enrichment of microbes in corals. In this study, we investigated whether the widely distributed parrotfish Chlorurus spilurus could vector and/or facilitate the enrichment of bacteria in the coral species Porites lobata. We used a combination of mesocosm and field experiments to explore the potential for C. spilurus to alter coral microbiomes. We first tested the effects of C. spilurus (7 individuals) predation on P. lobata microbiomes in mesocosm and collected samples of C. spilurus mouths (using swabs) and coral tissues (control and predated corals) for 16S rRNA gene amplification at 2 timepoints (T0 and T48h). For the field experiment, we targeted a back reef area in Moorea (French Polynesia) and collected mouth swabs from 10 individuals of C. spilurus as well as tissue samples of P. lobata from colonies that were naturally bitten by parrotfish and colonies that were not altered at all.

Identifier
Source https://data.blue-cloud.org/search-details?step=~012BA95BEC7C08C3C50D8A6E31AF3740569733B389F
Metadata Access https://data.blue-cloud.org/api/collections/BA95BEC7C08C3C50D8A6E31AF3740569733B389F
Provenance
Instrument Illumina MiSeq; ILLUMINA
Publisher Blue-Cloud Data Discovery & Access service; ELIXIR-ENA
Publication Year 2024
OpenAccess true
Contact blue-cloud-support(at)maris.nl
Representation
Discipline Marine Science
Spatial Coverage (-149.829W, -17.539S, -149.829E, -17.539N)
Temporal Point 2017-08-01T00:00:00Z