Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sde Boker, Israel.
Nat Commun. 2024 Nov 19;15(1):10033. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-54149-6.
Organismal communities associated with coral reefs, particularly invertebrates and microbes, play crucial roles in ecosystem maintenance and coral health. Here, we characterized the organismal composition of a healthy, non-urbanized reef (Site A) and a degraded, urbanized reef (Site B) in the Gulf of Eilat/Aqaba, Red Sea to assess its impact on coral health and physiology. Biomimetically designed terracotta tiles were conditioned for 6 months at both sites, then reciprocally transplanted, and scleractinian coral species, Acropora eurystoma and Stylophora pistillata, were attached for an additional 6 months. After 12 months, tiles from Site A transplanted to Site B exhibited greater invertebrate richness and diversity than Site B's original tiles (via Cytochrome c. Oxidase subunit I metabarcoding). Key bacteria from the healthy reef were more prevalent on Site A tiles and on the tiles transplanted to Site B (via 16S rRNA gene sequencing). Corals originally from Site B attached to transplanted healthy tiles (Site A) showed higher photochemical capacity, increased endosymbionts, and reduced physiological stress, measured by total antioxidant capacity and an integrated biomarker response. Our findings demonstrate the successful transfer of organismal communities between reefs, highlighting the potential benefits of healthy reef-associated invertebrates and microbes on coral physiology and their implications for reef restoration strategies.
与珊瑚礁相关的生物群落,特别是无脊椎动物和微生物,在生态系统维护和珊瑚健康方面发挥着关键作用。在这里,我们描述了红海中埃拉特/亚喀巴湾健康的、非城市化的珊瑚礁(A 点)和退化的、城市化的珊瑚礁(B 点)的生物群落组成,以评估其对珊瑚健康和生理学的影响。仿生设计的赤陶瓦在两个地点分别进行了 6 个月的条件处理,然后进行了相互移植,并在上面附着了石珊瑚物种 Acropora eurystoma 和 Stylophora pistillata 6 个月。12 个月后,从 A 点移植到 B 点的 A 点瓦片显示出比 B 点原始瓦片更高的无脊椎动物丰富度和多样性(通过细胞色素 c 氧化酶亚基 I 代谢组学)。健康珊瑚中的关键细菌在 A 点瓦片和移植到 B 点的瓦片上更为普遍(通过 16S rRNA 基因测序)。最初来自 B 点的附着在移植的健康瓦片(A 点)上的珊瑚表现出更高的光化学能力、增加的共生体和降低的生理压力,通过总抗氧化能力和综合生物标志物反应来衡量。我们的发现表明生物群落在珊瑚礁之间的成功转移,突出了健康珊瑚相关无脊椎动物和微生物对珊瑚生理学的潜在益处,以及它们对珊瑚礁恢复策略的影响。