Bacteria of the genus Endozoicomonas dominate the microbiome of the Mediterranean gorgonian coral Eunicella cavolini

MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 479:75-84 (2013) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps10197 Bacteria of the genus Endozoicomonas dominate the microbiome of the Mediterranean gorgonian coral Eunicella cavolini Till Bayer1,*, Chatchanit Arif1, Christine Ferrier-Pagès2, Didier Zoccola2, Manuel Aranda1, Christian R. Voolstra1,* 1Red Sea Research Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, 23955 Thuwal, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 2Centre Scientifique de Monaco, 98000 Monaco, Monaco *‑Corresponding authors. Emails: till.bayer@kaust.edu.sa and christian.voolstra@kaust.edu.sa ABSTRACT: Forming dense beds that provide the structural basis of a distinct ecosystem, the gorgonian Eunicella cavolini (Octocorallia) is an important species in the Mediterranean Sea. Despite the importance and prevalence of this temperate gorgonian, little is known about its microbial assemblage, although bacteria are well known to be important to hard and soft coral functioning. Here, we used massively parallel pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA genes to determine the composition and relative abundances of bacteria associated with E. cavolini collected from different depths at a site on the French Mediterranean coast. We found that whereas the bacterial assemblages of E. cavolini were distinct and less diverse than those of the surrounding water column, the water depth did not affect the bacterial assemblages of this gorgonian. Our data show that E. cavolini?s microbiome contains only a few shared species and that it is highly dominated by bacteria from the genus Endozoicomonas, a Gammaproteobacteria that is frequently found to associate with marine invertebrates. KEY WORDS: Microbial communities · Gorgonian · Eunicella cavolini · 16S tag sequencing Full text in pdf format Supplementary material PreviousNextCite this article as: Bayer T, Arif C, Ferrier-Pagès C, Zoccola D, Aranda M, Voolstra CR (2013) Bacteria of the genus Endozoicomonas dominate the microbiome of the Mediterranean gorgonian coral Eunicella cavolini. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 479:75-84. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps10197 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in MEPS Vol. 479. Online publication date: April 08, 2013 Print ISSN: 0171-8630; Online ISSN: 1616-1599 Copyright © 2013 Inter-Research.