Abstract
On coral reefs, microorganisms are essential for recycling nutrients to primary producers through the remineralization of benthic-derived organic matter. Diel investigations of reef processes are required to holistically understand the functional roles of microbial players in these ecosystems. Here we report a metagenomic analysis characterizing microbial communities in the water column overlying 16 remote forereef sites over a diel cycle. Our results show that microbial community composition is more dissimilar between day and night samples collected from the same site than between day or night samples collected across geographically distant reefs. Diel community differentiation is largely driven by the flux of Psychrobacter sp., which is two-orders of magnitude more abundant during the day. Nighttime communities are enriched with species of Roseobacter, Halomonas, and Alteromonas encoding a greater variety of pathways for carbohydrate catabolism, further illustrating temporal patterns of energetic provisioning between different marine microbes. Dynamic diel fluctuations of microbial populations could also support the efficient trophic transfer of energy posited in coral reef food webs.
Highlights
On coral reefs, microorganisms are essential for recycling nutrients to primary producers through the remineralization of benthic-derived organic matter
The water column overlying tropical coral reefs comprises a complex mixture of oligotrophic offshore waters and reef water enriched with the organic carbon and nitrogen substrates exuded by the benthic community[4,5], which establishes the base of a robust microbial food web[6,7]
This study highlights ecosystem functions on reefs that support dynamic fluctuations of diel microbial populations, capturing a key aspect of microbial ecology implicated in promoting trophic transfer of energetic resources through the microbial food web in tropical reef ecosystems
Summary
Microorganisms are essential for recycling nutrients to primary producers through the remineralization of benthic-derived organic matter. The hazards of apex predator feeding behaviors and of navigating boats through the reef during the night complicate the logistics of acquiring field diel measurements and nocturnal sample collections outside of controlled but artificial environments such as aquaria Despite these challenges, few studies have shown that the dark reef (i.e., the matrix of crevices and caves) is a hotspot for microorganisms[22] and meiofauna (e.g., amphipods and other tiny invertebrates) that are active during the night[23]. This study highlights ecosystem functions on reefs that support dynamic fluctuations of diel microbial populations, capturing a key aspect of microbial ecology implicated in promoting trophic transfer of energetic resources through the microbial food web in tropical reef ecosystems
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