Abstract
The Kuroshio Current (KC) is one of the fastest water currents in the world, running through the western boundary of the North Pacific Ocean. The KC strongly influences the regional hydroclimate by creating temperature, salinity, and pH gradients from tropical to subtropical and temperate zones, including regions with rich coral reef habitats. Microbial community composition of corals is influenced by various environmental factors, including salinity, pH, and geographical location. However, to date, it is unclear how coral-associated microbial communities would respond to the same water current running through different locations with a time lag. Therefore, we hypothesized that the locations subjected to the KC at higher latitudes experience similar but delayed environmental conditions compared to those at lower latitudes, and thus the coral communities of both will respond similarly, but at different times. In this yearlong study, we compared the bacterial communities of Acropora muricata at Taiwan, Okinawa, and Kochi subjected to the KC. We found that site-specific conditions and site latitude may have stronger effects on bacterial composition and dynamics than a water current. Consequently, we suggest that latitude largely determines the temperature tolerance range of coral microbiota. Additionally, among the dominant coral associated bacteria, Endozoicomonas from A. muricata and Stylophora pistillata forms distinct phylogroups, while Acinetobacter is more likely a host generalist.
Highlights
Coral associated microbes, together with their coral host, form an integrated holobiont, and have diverse interactions with their host and maintain coral holobiont function, such as nutrient acquisition and coral’s health (Rosenberg et al, 2007)
Inspired by our recent study which reported that Endozoicomonas acroporae is an Acropora-associated dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) degrader (Tandon et al, 2020), we further investigated how many of our Endozoiocmonas amplicons were associated with E. acroporae
Given the observation that Acinetobacter abundance was higher and more stable in low-latitude (Taiwan) than high-latitude (Okinawa and Kochi) sites, the question of whether Acinetobacter could edge Endozoicomonas out of the microbial assemblage dominance in Acropora warrants further study, especially with the rising seawater temperature in the age of global warming. This year-long study compared the bacterial communities of A. muricata at three sites subjected to the Kuroshio Current (KC) at different climate zones (Taiwan, Okinawa, and Kochi), and found an inverse correlation between coral bacterial diversity and site latitude
Summary
Together with their coral host, form an integrated holobiont, and have diverse interactions with their host and maintain coral holobiont function, such as nutrient acquisition and coral’s health (Rosenberg et al, 2007). Our recent report investigating the same coral species from different locations around Taiwan further demonstrated that the coral-associated microbiome was dominated by different bacterial taxa (Yang et al, 2017), indicating local environmental factors playing an important role affecting microbial composition in corals. Coral-associated microbial communities were reportedly influenced by environmental factors such as seawater temperature, pH, salinity, and nutrients (Guppy and Bythell, 2006; Klaus et al, 2007; Hong et al, 2009; Littman et al, 2009), all of which are largely affected by ocean currents. This report aroused the curiosity about to what extent the coral microbial communities in different climate zones are affected by the same ocean current that results in differential temperature, pH, and salinity gradients
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