Spatial and interspecific differences in coral-associated bacterial diversity in Hainan, China. (February 2022) - Qi, Zhao
Abstract: Coral reefs are suffering from environmental change and anthropogenic disturbances. It is well known that microbes play an indispensable role in the stable state of coral reef health. Furthermore, the coral reef microbial database helps to understand the connections among microbiomes shifts and ecosystem stress. Hainan Province is the main coral reef distribution area in China. Therefore, targeted microbial reference information from Hainan, including several coral microbiomes, was generated by 16S rRNA gene sequencing in this study. This study focused on a small range of coral-associated bacterial information and found a relationship between microbes and the surrounding environment based on coral interspecific and environmental factors. Interestingly, compared with species, the differences of bacterial community structures are best explained by site. It seems that various environmental factors contribute more to the microbial structure of corals than interspecific influences. Highlights: Proteobacteria is the dominant phylum of all coral species in this study. The rare taxa OTUs represented most of the diversity in the samples while fewer OTUs accounted for highly abundant OTUs. The coral-associated bacterial communities from Hongtang Bay and Da paishi have a closer relationship with latitude. Compared with coral species, coral geographical location has a greater impact on coral-associated bacterial communities.