Comparison of Symbiotic Bacterial Community of Soft Corals Sarcophyton and Sinularia of the Hainan Province, (South China Sea, China)

Abstract

Changes in the microbial community associated with environmental impacts can lead to opportunistic infections, coral disease and death. Diversity analysis and community comparison were performed on 23 collected soft Coral specimens from South China See surrounding Hainan Province (China) based on Illumina MiSeq sequencing. The results showed that Proteobacteria was the main symbiotic bacteria in soft corals. In the same geographical location, the diversity and abundance of symbiotic bacteria in the genus Sinularia are higher than genus Sarcophyton. Unlike Sinularia, the genus Sarcophyton is more inclined to Tenericutes. Furthermore, the same coral species has different bacterial community structure in different environments. The temperature difference between sampling points at 2 ℃ is the main factor affecting the results. A large number of Endozoicomonas found in stone corals have not become the dominant bacteria associated with soft corals. Coral-related pathogenic bacteria were not found in this investigation. This study provided a baseline for future studies of soft coral microbiomes, and assessment of functions of host metabolites and soft coral holobionts. Our result documented that same coral species in each locality represent identical pattern of bacterial diversity and community.