Marine Microbial Communities: Biodiversity, Composition and Function

A special issue of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (ISSN 2077-1312).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 December 2015) | Viewed by 13591

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Oceanographic Center, Nova Southeastern University, 8000 North Ocean Drive, Dania Beach, FL 33004, USA
Interests: marine microbiology; symbiosis; genomics; invertebrates

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
Department of Ecology and Environmental Studies, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, FL 33965-6565, USA
Interests: ecosystem ecology; aquatic ecology; biodiversity; feeding ecology; trophic dynamics; species interactions

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

As in terrestrial ecosystems, microbes drive fundamental processes in the oceans.

We also realize that microbial taxa rarely live in isolation, but rather thrive as part of complex microcosms, in almost every available niche, abiotic or symbiotic. Marine environments offer a variety of relatively uncharacterized habitats for microbial adaptations and colonization: three-dimensional pelagic (shallow and deep) hyperspace; arctic, temperate, and tropical thermal regimes; abruptly demarcated and variable clines in nutrients, salinity, temperature, etc.

With the advances of next-generation, high throughput DNA sequencing technologies, microbiologists can obtain a better grasp of microbial community ecology, composition, and function without full dependence on laboratory-based culturing. The following list of topics is not exhaustive, but represents areas that would constitute various nexuses for a special issue of the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering: “Marine microbial communities: biodiversity, composition and function”.

  • Comparing microbial biodiversity across small and large 3-dimensional scales in marine environments
  • Community culturing approaches from marine sources
  • Use of high-throughput DNA and RNA sequencing methods for microbial community studies
  • Recent advances in diverse marine symbiosis
  • Microbial community profiling via functional genomics and transcriptomics
  • Non-genomic technologies for characterizing microbial communities
  • Marine microbial communities and their applications in industry, biotechnology, and biomedicine

This Special Issue aims to compile papers devoted to these topics.

Prof. Jose Victor Lopez
Prof. Dr. Hidetoshi Urakawa
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • marine microbiology
  • function
  • genomics
  • symbiosis
  • microbiome

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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2147 KiB  
Article
Potential Impacts of PCBs on Sediment Microbiomes in a Tropical Marine Environment
by James S. Klaus, Vassiliki H. Kourafalou, Alan M. Piggot, Ad Reniers, HeeSook Kang, Naresh Kumar, Elsayed M. Zahran, Leonidas G. Bachas, Adolfo Fernandez, Piero Gardinali, Michal Toborek, Sylvia Daunert, Sapna Deo and Helena M. Solo-Gabriele
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2016, 4(1), 13; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse4010013 - 22 Feb 2016
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 6569
Abstract
Within the tropical marine study site of Guánica Bay, Puerto Rico, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are subjected to coastal and oceanic currents coupled with marine microbial and geochemical processes. To evaluate these processes a hydrodynamic model was developed to simulate the transport of PCBs [...] Read more.
Within the tropical marine study site of Guánica Bay, Puerto Rico, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are subjected to coastal and oceanic currents coupled with marine microbial and geochemical processes. To evaluate these processes a hydrodynamic model was developed to simulate the transport of PCBs within nearshore and offshore marine areas of Guánica Bay. Material transport and circulation information from the model were matched with measurements from samples collected from within the bay. These samples, consisting of both intertidal and submerged sediments, were analyzed for physical characteristics (organic carbon, grain size, and mineralogy), microbial characteristics (target bacteria levels and microbial community analyses), presence of PCBs, and PCB-degrading enzymes. Results show that the bay geometry and bathymetry limit the mixing of the extremely high levels of PCBs observed in the eastern portion of the bay. Bay bottom sediments showed the highest levels of PCBs and these sediments were characterized by high organic carbon content and finer grain size. Detectable levels of PCBs were also observed within sediments found along the shore. Microbes from the bay bottom sediments showed a greater relative abundance of microbes from the Chloroflexi, phylum with close phylogenetic associations with known anaerobic PCB-degrading organisms. Based on quantitative PCR measurement of the biphenyl dioxygenase gene, the intertidal sediments showed the greatest potential for aerobic PCB degradation. These results elucidate particular mechanisms of PCB’s fate and transport in coastal, tropical marine environments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Marine Microbial Communities: Biodiversity, Composition and Function)
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1178 KiB  
Article
Viral and Bacterial Epibionts in Thermally-Stressed Corals
by Hanh Nguyen-Kim, Thierry Bouvier, Corinne Bouvier, Van Ngoc Bui, Huong Le-Lan and Yvan Bettarel
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2015, 3(4), 1272-1286; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse3041272 - 22 Oct 2015
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 6303
Abstract
The periodic rise in seawater temperature is one of the main environmental determinants of coral bleaching. However, the direct incidence of these episodic thermal anomalies on coral-associated microbiota and their subsequent effects on coral health are still not completely understood. In this study, [...] Read more.
The periodic rise in seawater temperature is one of the main environmental determinants of coral bleaching. However, the direct incidence of these episodic thermal anomalies on coral-associated microbiota and their subsequent effects on coral health are still not completely understood. In this study, we investigated the dynamics of three main microbial communities of the coral holobiont (e.g., Symbiodinium, bacteria and viruses), during an experimental thermal stress (+4 °C) conducted on the scleractinian Fungia repanda. The heat-treatment induced coral bleaching after 11 days and resulted in a final elevation of ca. 9, 130 and 250-fold in the abundance of mucosal viruses, bacteria, and Symbiodinium, respectively. On the contrary, the proportion of actively respiring bacterial cells declined by 95% in heat-stressed corals. The community composition of epibiotic bacteria in healthy corals also greatly differed from bleached ones, which also exhibited much higher production rates of viral epibionts. Overall, our results suggest that the shift in temperature induced a series of microbial changes, including the expulsion and transfer of Symbiodinium cells from the coral polyps to the mucus, the collapse of the physiological state of the native bacterial associates, a substantial alteration in their community structure, and accompanied by the development of a cortege of highly active virulent phages. Finally, this study provides new insights into the environmentally-driven microbial and viral processes responsible for the dislocation of the coral holobiont. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Marine Microbial Communities: Biodiversity, Composition and Function)
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