Phylogenetically and spatially close marine sponges harbour divergent bacterial communities.

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. Po

SUBMITTER: Hardoim CC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3531450 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature