Phylogenetically and Spatially Close Marine Sponges Harbour Divergent Bacterial Communities
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Digital.CSIC Phylogenetically and Spatially Close Marine Sponges Harbour Divergent Bacterial Communities Cristiane C. P. Hardoim1, Ana I. S. Esteves1, Francisco R. Pires2, Jorge M. S. Gonc¸alves3, Cymon J. Cox4, Joana R. Xavier2,5, Rodrigo Costa1* 1 Microbial Ecology and Evolution Research Group, Centre of Marine Sciences, University of Algarve, Faro, Algarve, Portugal, 2 Centro de Investigac¸a˜o em Biodiversidade e Recursos Gene´ticos, Laborato´rio Associado, Po´lo dos Ac¸ores, Departamento de Biologia da Universidade dos Ac¸ores, Ponta Delgada, Ac¸ores, Portugal, 3 Fisheries, Biodiversity and Conservation Research Group, Centre of Marine Sciences, University of Algarve, Faro, Algarve, Portugal, 4 Plant Systematics and Bioinformatics, Centre of Marine Sciences, University of Algarve, Faro, Algarve, Portugal, 5 Centre for Advanced Studies of Blanes, Girona, Spain Abstract Recent studies have unravelled the diversity of sponge-associated bacteria that may play essential roles in sponge health and metabolism. Nevertheless, our understanding of this microbiota remains limited to a few host species found in restricted geographical localities, and the extent to which the sponge host determines the composition of its own microbiome remains a matter of debate. We address bacterial abundance and diversity of two temperate marine sponges belonging to the Irciniidae family - Sarcotragus spinosulus and Ircinia variabilis – in the Northeast Atlantic. Epifluorescence microscopy revealed that S. spinosulus hosted significantly more prokaryotic cells than I. variabilis and that prokaryotic abundance in both species was about 4 orders of magnitude higher than in seawater.
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