Local Conditions Influence the Prokaryotic Communities Associated With the Mesophotic Black Coral Antipathella subpinnata.

ABSTRACT: Black corals are important habitat-forming species in the mesophotic and deep-sea zones of the world's oceans because of their arborescent colony structure and tendency to form animal forests. Although we have started unraveling the ecology of mesophotic black corals, the importance of the associated microbes to their health has remained unexplored. Here, we provide in-depth assessments of black coral-microbe symbioses by investigating the spatial and temporal stability of these associations, and make comparisons with a sympatric octocoral with similar colony structure. To this end, we collected samples of Antipathella subpinnata colonies from three mesophotic shoals situated along the Ligurian Coast of the Mediterranean Sea (Bordighera, Portofino, Savona) in the spring of 2017. At

SUBMITTER: van de Water JAJM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7573217 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature