Diversity and functional roles of the symbiotic microbiome associated to marine sponges off Karah Island, Terengganu, Malaysia

Abstract

Marine sponges harbor a complex microbial consortium that plays important roles in host metabolisms and the production of chemical compounds. Symbiotic microbial community structures of marine sponges have been studied in recent years especially in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean Sea, whereas there is still a paucity of research in Malaysia. This study investigated the microbial community structures associated with four different marine sponge species (Aaptos suberitoides (Brøndsted, 1934), Neopetrosia exigua (Kirkpatrick, 1900), Theonella swinhoei (Gray, 1868), and Xestospongia testudinaria (Lamarck, 1815)) collected from Karah Island, Peninsular Malaysia. Microbial genomic DNA of four sponges and surrounding seawater were extracted and 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing was conducted targeting V3–V4 variable region using Illumina MiSeq platform. Paired-end sequences were analyzed using QIIME2 and the potential microbial functions related to the microbial communities of marine sponges and seawater were annotated using functional annotation of prokaryotic taxa (FAPROTAX). Microbial community structures and compositions were clearly different between sponges and seawater, as well as within different sponge species. Taxonomic analysis showed that Chloroflexi was the predominant phylum in all sponge species. Proteobacteria and Actinobacteriota were composing the core taxa of the microbial communities in N. exigua, T. swinhoei, and X. testudinaria, whereas Cyanobacteria and Proteobacteria were dominant in A. suberitoides. The functional analysis revealed that the abundance of the “predatory or exoparasitic” function was high in all sponges. The functions of aerobic ammonia oxidation and nitrification were dominant in marine sponges, rather than seawater. This study has important implications in understanding the microbial community structures associated with marine sponges in Malaysia, and gives fundamental information of sponge–microbe interactions and functional roles for future investigations.