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The ecology of microbial communities associated with Macrocystis pyrifera

Michelou, Vanessa K. and Caporaso, J. Gregory and Knight, Rob and Palumbi, Stephen R. (2013) The ecology of microbial communities associated with Macrocystis pyrifera. PLoS ONE, 8 (6). e67480. ISSN 1932-6203

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Publisher’s or external URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0067480

Abstract

Kelp forests are characterized by high biodiversity and productivity, and the cycling of kelp-produced carbon is a vital process in this ecosystem. Although bacteria are assumed to play a major role in kelp forest carbon cycling, knowledge of the composition and diversity of these bacterial communities is lacking. Bacterial communities on the surface of Macrocystis pyrifera and adjacent seawater were sampled at the Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey Bay, CA, and further studied using 454-tag pyrosequencing of 16S RNA genes. Our results suggest that M. pyrifera-dominated kelp forests harbor distinct microbial communities that vary temporally. The distribution of sequence tags assigned to Gammaproteobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria and Bacteriodetes differed between the surface of the kelp and the surrounding water. Several abundant Rhodobacteraceae, uncultivated Gammaproteobacteria and Bacteriodetes-associated tags displayed considerable temporal variation, often with similar trends in the seawater and the surface of the kelp. Bacterial community structure and membership correlated with the kelp surface serving as host, and varied over time. Several kelp-specific taxa were highly similar to other bacteria known to either prevent the colonization of eukaryotic larvae or exhibit antibacterial activities. Some of these kelp-specific bacterial associations might play an important role for M. pyrifera. This study provides the first assessment of the diversity and phylogenetic profile of the bacterial communities associated with M. pyrifera.

Item Type: Article
ID number or DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0067480
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Keywords: Bbacteria -- Population biology; Biodiversity; Biology; carbon cycle (Biogeochemistry); Coastal ecology; colonization (Ecology); Computational biology; diversity; Ddynamics; Ecological environments; Ecological metrics; Ecology; Evolutionary Biology; Evolutionary systematics; extraction; fucoidan; giant kelp; kelp; macroalgae; marine bacterial strain; Marine biology; Marine ecology; Marine environments; microbial ecology; Microbiology; microorganisms -- Population biology; monterey bay; Organisms; Phylogenetics; Research Article; Sequence analysis; species diversity; Surfaces
Subjects: Q Science > QR Microbiology
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status: Faculty/Staff
Department/Unit: College of Engineering, Forestry, and Natural Science > Biological Sciences
Date Deposited: 16 Oct 2015 19:26
URI: http://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/1709

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