Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

ORCID

0000-0002-1637-4125

ResearcherID

F-8809-2011

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Nature Communications

ISSN

2041-1723

Publication Date

6-16-2016

Abstract

Sponges (phylum Porifera) are early-diverging metazoa renowned for establishing complex microbial symbioses. Here we present a global Porifera microbiome survey, set out to establish the ecological and evolutionary drivers of these host–microbe interactions.We show that sponges are a reservoir of exceptional microbial diversity and major contributors to the total microbial diversity of the world’s oceans. Little commonality in species composition or structure is evident across the phylum, although symbiont communities are characterized by specialists and generalists rather than opportunists. Core sponge microbiomes are stable and characterized by generalist symbionts exhibiting amensal and/or commensal interactions. Symbionts that are phylogenetically unique to sponges do not disproportionally contribute to the core microbiome, and host phylogeny impacts complexity rather than composition of the symbiont community. Our findings support a model of independent assembly and evolution in symbiont communities across the entire host phylum, with convergent forces resulting in analogous community organization and interactions.

DOI

10.1038/ncomms11870

Volume

7

Issue

11870

First Page

1

Last Page

12

Comments

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Additional Comments

Australian Research Council Future Fellowships #s: FT140100197, FT120100480; Spanish Government project #: MARSYMBIOMICS CTM2013-43287-P; NSF grant #s: DEB-0829986, DEB-1208340; EU-FP7 program #: KBBE.2012.3.2-01, grant no. 311932, SeaBioTech; French Labortory of Excellent Project 'TULIP' grant #s: ANR-10-LABX-41, ANR-11-IDEX-002-02; Region Midi-Pyrenees Project #: CNRS 121090

Download
Peer Reviewed

Find in your library

Share

COinS