title: Persistent shifts in Caribbean coral microbiota are linked to the 2010 warm thermal anomaly.
abstract: The response of corals to warm temperature anomalies includes changes in coral bacterial assemblages. There are clear differences between the microbiota of bleached and healthy corals. However, few studies have tracked the microbiota of individual colonies throughout a warming event. We used 454 pyrosequencing and repeated measures to characterize bacterial assemblages in 15 Gorgonia ventalina colonies before, during, 4 months after, and 1 year after the 2010 Caribbean warm thermal anomaly. In the latter three sampling times, the G. ventalina microbiota differed significantly from the microbiota of Orbicella faveolata colonies, which were sampled only at these three times. O. faveolata microbiota did not exhibit coordinated shifts through time. Notably, the microbiota of the repeatedly sampled G. ventalina colonies shifted persistently from before to during, after, and long after the warming event. The same pattern emerges from the norm of reaction for the individual G. ventalina colonies. This is the first study to show persistent shifts in coral microbiota in association with a warm thermal anomaly. Whether shifting microbiota is adaptive or maladaptive, the lasting change in bacterial assemblages following this warming event identifies a new way that coral microbiota shape the response of coral colonies under thermal stress.
authors: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
authors: Allison M
authors: AM
authors: Tracy
authors: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.|Faculty of Medicine, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
authors: Omry
authors: O
authors: Koren
authors: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
authors: Nancy
authors: N
authors: Douglas
authors: Department of Marine Sciences, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
authors: Ernesto
authors: E
authors: Weil
authors: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
authors: C Drew
authors: CD
authors: Harvell
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D037421:Anthozoa / Q000382:microbiology*; D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification; D058448:Biota; D017691:Caribbean Region; D008685:Meteorological Concepts