Exploring the diversity-stability paradigm using sponge microbial communities

Glasl, Bettina, Smith, Caitlin E., Bourne, David G., and Webster, Nicole S. (2018) Exploring the diversity-stability paradigm using sponge microbial communities. Scientific Reports, 8. 8425.

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Abstract

A key concept in theoretical ecology is the positive correlation between biodiversity and ecosystem stability. When applying this diversity-stability concept to host-associated microbiomes, the following questions emerge: (1) Does microbial diversity influence the stability of microbiomes upon environmental fluctuations? (2) Do hosts that harbor high versus low microbial diversity differ in their stress response? To test the diversity-stability concept in host-associated microbiomes, we exposed six marine sponge species with varying levels of microbial diversity to non-lethal salinity disturbances and followed their microbial composition over time using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. No signs of sponge stress were evident following salinity amendment and microbiomes exhibited compositional resistance irrespective of their microbial diversity. Compositional stability of the sponge microbiome manifests itself at distinct host taxonomic and host microbial diversity groups, with (1) stable host genotype-specific microbiomes at oligotype-level; (2) stable host species-specific microbiomes at genus-level; and (3) stable and specific microbiomes at phylum-level for hosts with high versus low microbial diversity. The resistance of sponge microbiomes together with the overall stability of sponge holobionts upon salinity fluctuations suggest that the stability-diversity concept does not appear to hold for sponge microbiomes and provides further evidence for the widely recognized environmental tolerance of sponges.

Item ID: 54205
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 2045-2322
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Copyright Information: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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A version of this publication was included as Chapter 5 of the following PhD thesis: Glasl, Bettina (2019) Microbial indicators for environmental stress and ecosystem health assessments. PhD thesis, James Cook University, which is available Open Access in ResearchOnline@JCU. Please see the Related URLs for access.

Funders: Advance Queensland PhD Scholarship, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA)
Projects and Grants: GBRMPA Management Award
Date Deposited: 20 Jun 2018 07:45
FoR Codes: 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3107 Microbiology > 310703 Microbial ecology @ 100%
SEO Codes: 96 ENVIRONMENT > 9699 Other Environment > 969999 Environment not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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