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Coral-bacterial communities before and after a coral mass spawning event on Ningaloo Reef
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Coral-bacterial communities before and after a coral mass spawning event on Ningaloo Reef

J. Ceh, J-B Raina, R.M. Soo, M. van Keulen and D.G. Bourne
PLoS ONE, Vol.7(5), e36920
2012
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Abstract

Bacteria associated with three coral species, Acropora tenuis, Pocillopora damicornis and Tubastrea faulkneri, were assessed before and after coral mass spawning on Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia. Two colonies of each species were sampled before and after the mass spawning event and two additional samples were collected for P. damicornis after planulation. A variable 470 bp region of the 16 S rRNA gene was selected for pyrosequencing to provide an understanding of potential variations in coral-associated bacterial diversity and community structure. Bacterial diversity increased for all coral species after spawning as assessed by Chao1 diversity indicators. Minimal changes in community structure were observed at the class level and data at the taxonomical level of genus incorporated into a PCA analysis indicated that despite bacterial diversity increasing after spawning, coral-associated community structure did not shift greatly with samples grouped according to species. However, interesting changes could be detected from the dataset; for example, α-Proteobacteria increased in relative abundance after coral spawning and particularly the Roseobacter clade was found to be prominent in all coral species, indicating that this group may be important in coral reproduction.

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Citation topics
3 Agriculture, Environment & Ecology
3.2 Marine Biology
3.2.570 Coral Reef Ecology
Web Of Science research areas
Microbiology
ESI research areas
Microbiology
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