High microbial diversity, functional redundancy, and prophage enrichment support the success of the yellow pencil coral, <i>Madracis mirabilis,</i> in Curacao's coral reefs.

ABSTRACT: Coral reefs have undergone extensive coral loss and shifts in community composition worldwide. Despite this, some coral species appear naturally more resistant, such as Madracis mirabilis (herein Madracis). Madracis has emerged as the dominant hard coral in Curaçao, comprising 26% of coral cover in reefs that declined by 78% between 1973 and 2015. Although life history traits and competitive mechanisms contribute to Madracis's success, these factors alone may not fully explain it, as other species with similar traits have not shown comparable success. Here, we investigated the potential role of microbial communities in the success of Madracis on Curaçao reefs by leveraging a low-bias bacterial and viral enrichment method for metagenomic sequencing of cora

SUBMITTER: Wallace BA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12625765 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature