Ciliate and bacterial communities associated with White Syndrome and Brown Band Disease in reef building corals

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  2. Dr Michael Sweet
  3. Professor John Bythell
Author(s)Sweet MJ, Bythell JC
Publication type Article
JournalEnvironmental Microbiology
Year2012
Volume14
Issue8
Pages2184-2199
ISSN (print)1462-2912
ISSN (electronic)1462-2920
Full text is available for this publication:
White Syndrome (WS) and Brown Band Disease (BrB) are important causes of reef coral mortality for which causal agents have not been definitively identified. Here we use culture-independent molecular techniques (DGGE and clone libraries) to characterise ciliate and bacterial communities in these diseases. Bacterial (16S rRNA gene) and ciliate (18S rRNA gene) communities were highly similar between the two diseases. Four bacterial and nine ciliate ribotypes were observed in both diseases, but absent in non diseased specimens. Only one of the bacteria, Arcobacter sp. (JF831360) increased substantially in relative 16S rRNA gene abundance and was consistently represented in all diseased samples. Four of the eleven ciliate morphotypes detected contained coral algal symbionts, indicative of the ingestion of coral tissues. In both WS and BrB, there were two ciliate morphotypes consistently represented in all disease lesion samples. Morph1 (JN626268) was observed to burrow into and underneath the coral tissues at the lesion boundary. Morph2 (JN626269), previously identified in BrB, appears to play a secondary, less invasive role in pathogenesis, but has a higher population density in BrB, giving rise to the visible brown band. The strong similarity in bacterial and ciliate community composition of these diseases suggests that they are actually the same syndrome.
PublisherWiley-Blackwell
URLhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1462-2920.2012.02746.x
DOI10.1111/j.1462-2920.2012.02746.x
NotesSpecial Issue: Ecology, Evolution and Population Genetics of Pathogenic Microbes
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