Eelgrass Leaf Surface Microbiomes Are Locally Variable and Highly Correlated with Epibiotic Eukaryotes.

ABSTRACT: Eelgrass (Zostera marina) is a marine foundation species essential for coastal ecosystem services around the northern hemisphere. Like all macroscopic organisms, it possesses a microbiome (here defined as an associated prokaryotic community) which may play critical roles in modulating the interaction of eelgrass with its environment. For example, its leaf surface microbiome could inhibit or attract eukaryotic epibionts which may overgrow the eelgrass leading to reduced primary productivity and subsequent eelgrass meadow decline. We used amplicon sequencing of the 16S and 18S rRNA genes of prokaryotes and eukaryotes to assess the leaf surface microbiome (prokaryotes) as well as eukaryotic epibionts in- and outside lagoons on the German Baltic Sea coast. Prokaryote microbiomes varied

SUBMITTER: Bengtsson MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5507959 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature