TY - JOUR
T1 - High diversity of benthic cyanobacterial mats on coral reefs of Koh Tao, Gulf of Thailand
AU - Stuij, Tamara M.
AU - Cleary, Daniel F.R.
AU - Gomes, Newton C.M.
AU - Mehrotra, Rahul
AU - Visser, Petra M.
AU - Speksnijder, Arjen G.C.L.
AU - Hoeksema, Bert W.
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful to the Conservation Diver team at Koh Tao, J. Gijsbers Alejandre and S. Oosterbroek for their assistance and material supply during the field campaign. The project was funded by Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, with additional funding from the Jan-Joost ter Pelkwijkfonds and the Alida M Buitendijkfonds. While writing the article, the first author was supported through 4D-REEF, a European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 813360. We want to thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments which helped us to improve our manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
PY - 2023/2
Y1 - 2023/2
N2 - Benthic cyanobacterial mats are increasingly reported to cover major coral reef areas. Although suggestions have been made that cyanobacterial mats impair coral reef health in multiple ways, information is lacking regarding the distribution, morphotypical variation and bacterial species composition of these microbial mats. As such, this study aimed to (1) Reveal the bacterial community diversity and composition of different mat morphotypes, (2) Identify the most abundant community members and closely related organisms, (3) Assess to what extent, morphotype, colonized substrate (coral or abiotic substrate), depth, and site were significant predictors of bacterial composition. Data were collected on reefs surrounding the island of Koh Tao (Gulf of Thailand). A total of 201 mats from 16 different locations around the island were classified into eight distinct morphotypes. Of these, the bacterial communities of 44 mats, representing colour groups from multiple sites, were characterized using 16S rRNA gene high-throughput sequencing. Our data revealed that Proteobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Bacteriodetes and Planctomycetes were the four most abundant phyla and occurred in all samples. Abundant cyanobacterial zero-radius operational taxonomic units (ZOTUs) were closely related to prokaryotic sequences found in previous studies of coastal mats (98–100%) and were assigned to genera in the order Oscillatoriales, e.g. Hormoscilla, Okeania, and Oscillatoria. Abundant proteobacterial ZOTUs were assigned to orders in the classes Alpha- and Gammaproteobacteria, e.g. Rhodobacterales, Rhizobiales and Alteromonadales. Abundant Bacteriodetes ZOTUs were mainly assigned to the class Bacteroidia and order Cytophagales. Our results showed that mats consist of a diverse and variable bacterial consortium, with mat colour (morphotype), substrate type and geographic location only explaining a small part of the total variation in composition.
AB - Benthic cyanobacterial mats are increasingly reported to cover major coral reef areas. Although suggestions have been made that cyanobacterial mats impair coral reef health in multiple ways, information is lacking regarding the distribution, morphotypical variation and bacterial species composition of these microbial mats. As such, this study aimed to (1) Reveal the bacterial community diversity and composition of different mat morphotypes, (2) Identify the most abundant community members and closely related organisms, (3) Assess to what extent, morphotype, colonized substrate (coral or abiotic substrate), depth, and site were significant predictors of bacterial composition. Data were collected on reefs surrounding the island of Koh Tao (Gulf of Thailand). A total of 201 mats from 16 different locations around the island were classified into eight distinct morphotypes. Of these, the bacterial communities of 44 mats, representing colour groups from multiple sites, were characterized using 16S rRNA gene high-throughput sequencing. Our data revealed that Proteobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Bacteriodetes and Planctomycetes were the four most abundant phyla and occurred in all samples. Abundant cyanobacterial zero-radius operational taxonomic units (ZOTUs) were closely related to prokaryotic sequences found in previous studies of coastal mats (98–100%) and were assigned to genera in the order Oscillatoriales, e.g. Hormoscilla, Okeania, and Oscillatoria. Abundant proteobacterial ZOTUs were assigned to orders in the classes Alpha- and Gammaproteobacteria, e.g. Rhodobacterales, Rhizobiales and Alteromonadales. Abundant Bacteriodetes ZOTUs were mainly assigned to the class Bacteroidia and order Cytophagales. Our results showed that mats consist of a diverse and variable bacterial consortium, with mat colour (morphotype), substrate type and geographic location only explaining a small part of the total variation in composition.
KW - 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing
KW - Bacterial community diversity
KW - Cyanobacteria
KW - Microbial mat
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85140123844
U2 - 10.1007/s00338-022-02304-0
DO - 10.1007/s00338-022-02304-0
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85140123844
SN - 0722-4028
VL - 42
SP - 77
EP - 91
JO - Coral Reefs
JF - Coral Reefs
ER -