Schmitt S, Hentschel U, Taylor MW. (2012). Deep sequencing reveals diversity and community structure of complex microbiota in five Mediterranean sponges. In: Maldonado M, Turon X, Becerro MA, Uriz MJ (eds) Ancient Animals, New Challenges. Sponge Research Developments. Hydrobiologia 687, pp 341-351.

283641

Schmitt S, Hentschel U, Taylor MW

2012

Publication

Proceedings of the 8th International Sponge Conference

Available for editors   [request]

Marine sponges harbor dense microbial communities of exceptionally high diversity. Despite the complexity of sponge microbiota, microbial communities in different sponges seem to be remark- ably similar. In this study, we used a subset of a previously established 454 amplicon pyrosequencing dataset (Schmitt and Taylor, unpublished data). Five Mediterranean sponges were chosen including the model sponge Aplysina aerophoba to determine the extent of uniformity by defining (i) the core microbial community, consisting of bacteria found in all sponges, (ii) the variable microbial community, consisting of bacteria found in 2–4 sponges, and (iii) the species-specific community, consisting of bacteria found in only one sponge. Using the enormous sequencing depth of pyrosequencing the diversity in each of the five sponges was extended to up to 15 different bacterial phyla per sponge with Proteobacteria and Chloroflexi being most diverse in each of the five sponges. Similarity comparison of bacteria on phylum and phylotype level revealed most similar communities in A. aerophoba and A. cavernicola and the most dissimilar community in Pseudocorticium jarrei. A surprising minimal core bacterial community was found when distribution of 97% operational taxonomic units (OTUs) was analyzed. Core, variable, and species-specific communities were comprised of 2, 26, and 72% of all OTUs, respectively. This indicates that each sponge contains a large set of unique bacteria and shares only few bacteria with other sponges. However, host species- specific bacteria are probably still closely related to each other explaining the observed similarity among bacterial communities in sponges.

Mediterranean

Associations, Symbiosis, Commensalism (parasitism see *PAR)

Porifera

RIS (EndNote, Reference Manager, ProCite, RefWorks)
BibTex (BibDesk, LaTeX)

[Back to search]