Influence of temperature changes on symbiotic Symbiodiniaceae and bacterial communities’ structure: an experimental study on soft coral Sarcophyton trocheliophorum (Anthozoa: Alcyoniidae)

Hao Lu,Alireza Asem,Wenxue Che,Pei-Zheng Wang,Weidong Li

doi:10.1017/s0266467421000109

Abstract

AbstractIt is well concluded that microbial composition and diversity of coral species can be affected under temperature alterations. However, the interaction of environmental accumulation of corals and temperature stress on symbiotic Symbiodiniaceae and bacterial communities are rarely studied. In this study, two groups of soft coral Sarcophyton trocheliophorum were cultured under constant (26 °C) and inconstant (22 °C to 26 °C) temperature conditions for 30 days as control treatments. After that, water was cooled rapidly to decrease to 20 °C in 24 h. The results of diversity analysis showed that symbiotic Symbiodiniaceae and bacterial communities had a significant difference between the two accumulated groups. The principal coordinate analyses confirmed that symbiotic Symbiodiniaceae and bacterial communities of both control treatments were clustered into two groups. Our results evidenced that rapid cooling stress could not change symbiotic Symbiodiniaceae and bacterial communities’ composition. On the other hand, cooling stress could alter only bacterial communities in constant group. In conclusion, our study represents a clear relationship between environmental accumulation and the impact of short-term cooling stress in which microbial composition structure can be affected by early adaptation conditions.

Highlights

Coral bleaching has become a research hotspot for marine science since 1960s
principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) documented that constant group (Cg) and inconstant group (Ig) were completely divided into two clusters following first coordinate, while there was no indicative differentiation between treatments within each group (Figure 2)
Symbiodiniaceae composition was strongly adapted with longterm temperature acclimation of hosts while there was no significant difference in their diversity and abundance after rapid cooling

Summary

Introduction

Coral bleaching has become a research hotspot for marine science since 1960s. This phenomenon was initially discovered as a consequence of large-scale loss of Symbiodiniaceae in corals under environmental disturbances (Yonge and Nicholls 1931). The large-scale deaths of corals have been reported in Leizhou Peninsula during Holocene due to extensive cooling (Yu et al 2004). Further studies showed Vibrio shilonii AK-1 releases quartile sensing signal molecules in the process of coral infection (Li et al 2016). Meyer et al (2016) confirmed that quartile sensing signal molecules could be involved in the infection process of coral leukosis

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