Molecular investigation of the microbial community associated with the fire sponge, Tedania ignis, in Bermuda
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Abstract
The complex, phylogenetically diverse, and specific microbial communities associated with marine sponges are a key aspect of the ecology and evolution of the metazoan host and the endosymbiotic microbes. Using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) methods, terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T RFLP), and functional gene probing via PCR, the current study investigates the microbial associations in the common Caribbean fire sponge, Tedania ignis. Sponge and water samples were collected from different sites around Bermuda from 2012 to 2014 in order to assess their respective microbial communities. Using FISH, SAR202 (Chloroflexi) (5.82% ± 0.59%) and Crenarchaea (7.97% ± 1.08%) were identified as the most abundant contributors to the microbial assemblage of T. ignis while the Alphaproteobacterium SAR11 (30.68% ± 1.68%) was identified as the most dominant species in the surrounding seawater. Due to the presence of Crenarchaea, the Archaeal gene for ammonia oxidation (amoA) was probed via PCR and found to be present. T RFLP identified the most abundant fragment length present in the sponge as 336 bp (>60% of T RFLP peak abundance). The sponge community was consistent and markedly distinct from that of the ambient seawater as identified by both FISH and T RFLP. Epifluorescent microscopy with DAPI staining also identified T. ignis as a high microbial abundance (HMA) sponge, in contrast to previous studies. Together, these data characterize the microbiome of T. ignis in much further detail than has previously been described.
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2015. Molecular investigation of the microbial community associated with the fire sponge, Tedania ignis, in Bermuda. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e905v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.905v1Author comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
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Competing Interests
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
Author Contributions
Nicholas J Jouett conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Meredith E Bibbings performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, prepared figures and/or tables.
Clarisse E Sullivan performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, prepared figures and/or tables.
Rachel J Parsons conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Funding
This study was originally supported by the CV Starr endowment to BIOS as a Fall Semester scholarship to Jouett in 2012 and further supported by BIOS grant in aid scholarships to Jouett in 2013 and 2014 and URI’s Stan Cobb Marine Biology Endowment to Jouett and Sullivan in 2014. This study was also supported by the Sullivan family and the BIOS Bermuda Program internship to Bibbings. The FISH and T RFLP analyses were funded by NSF Oceanic Observatory OCE-0801991 subcontract to BIOS and Parsons. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.