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School of Biological Sciences

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Impact of parrotfish predation on coral health: changes in microbiome and pathogen defense

2021-05 , Towner, Alexandra

Coral reefs are in rapid decline, and it is imperative to study reef community interactions in order to mitigate and reverse this trajectory. This study explores the relationship between corals and parrotfish, investigating how parrotfish bites on coral impact the composition of the coral’s microbiome and the corals suppression of a common bacterial pathogen. Fragments of Porites lobata coral colonies that were heavily predated by parrotfish or that showed no signs of parrotfish predation were shaken in seawater, and this seawater was bioassayed against the common coral pathogen Vibrio coralliilyticus to assess the effects of previous predation on the coral’s ability to suppress this ecologically relevant pathogen. Additionally, we sequenced the 16S rRNA gene from each coral sample to investigate possible alterations of the coral’s microbiome due to predation. Neither alpha diversity nor beta diversity of the microbiome was impacted by parrotfish predation. However, some bacteria were differentially abundant, such as those of the genus Endozoicomonas. Bioassays of water in which coral fragments were agitated detected no impact of previous parrotfish attack on the coral’s suppression of the pathogen Vibrio coralliilyticus. Overall, this speaks to the resistance and strength that corals demonstrate in the face of parrotfish predation.

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Developing appropriate methodology for assessing anti-pathogen properties of mucus-enriched water from corals

2019-05 , Jarvis, Simone

Global coral reef health is in rapid decline. A major contributor to this trend is warming ocean temperatures. As ocean temperature increases, corals become more susceptible to diseases that lead to bleaching and tissue mortality. Vibrio coralliilyticus is one of the few documented coral bleaching pathogens. Previous studies developed methods to quantify V. coralliilyticus metabolism and developed culturing procedures to test the anti-Vibrio potency of mucus-enriched water from numerous coral species. However, the best way to collect and process mucus-enriched water from corals was not determined. Previous efforts obtained mucus-enriched water via coral fragmentation and agitation in seawater. This methodology detected anti-Vibrio activity from several species, but required destructive sampling of the corals. This prevents collecting data over multiple time points without confounding time with previous damage. This study evaluates the effectiveness of less destructive methodologies for sampling mucus-enriched coral water. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the less destructive method of slowly sucking coral mucus from colonies in the field using a syringe. Tests using this method on mucus enriched water from 9 species of coral detected no anti-pathogen activity. In contrast, tests using the fragmentation and shaking method found significant anti-pathogen activity in 3 of the 4 species tested. the less destructive method assayed here, is ineffective at assessing the anti-pathogen potential of corals.