Project: EAGER: Collaborative Research: Quantifying coral microbiome dynamics under change

NSF Award Abstract:
Corals are the architectural base of reefs, one of the most biodiverse and ecologically complex ocean ecosystems that also provide substantial economic resources to coastal communities. Unfortunately, recent episodes of widespread bleaching and disease have reduced coral populations and contributed to declines in reef ecosystems. There is speculation that the coral microbiome, including a community of bacteria and archaea, may provide added resistance and resilience to corals facing pathogens and warmer ocean conditions. However, there are no quantitatively methods available to track specific microbial lineages within coral microbiomes, thus limiting the ability to examine these concepts. This research will improve capabilities to quantitatively measure and track specific microbial lineages within the coral microbiome. Coral reefs are one of the most globally threatened ecosystems in the ocean. The project will provide methodological advancements that will enhance understanding about the response of coral microbiomes to warming, disease and environmental-related disturbance. These efforts will help provide a necessary knowledge framework for scientists, reef managers and decision makers who are urgently exploring solutions to prevent the further decline of coral reef ecosystems. The team will communicate project findings broadly through publicly accessible narratives shared through press releases and an online magazine. This project will promote data sharing and collaboration amongst coral microbiome scientists, through a data sharing and visualization portal. The project will train undergraduate and graduate students and will be led by two female PIs (one Hispanic).

This research has the potential to transform our current ability to quantify ecological changes within coral microbiomes and to understand and predict how coral-associated microbes may be able to contribute to the resilience and resistance of corals to warming, disease and environmental change related stressors on reefs. This project will contribute methodological and resource contributions that will advance knowledge and studies of coral microbiomes as well as other host-microbiome systems. Specifically, the team plans to develop and test two types of controls, 1) spike-in microbial cells and 2) a coral microbiome specific mock community. These methods will be used to address the following hypothesis: improved quantitative descriptions of coral microbiome dynamics in relation to relevant scenarios of change are obtained using spike-in controls and coral-specific mock communities. To address this, the investigators will develop endogenous spike-in controls of bacteria and archaea to track microbial load or abundance within samples and construct a coral microbiome mock community to optimize PCR, sequencing and data analysis. These methods will first be optimized in a replicated experimental manner across healthy, nonstressed and ecologically and phylogenetically diverse coral species. Next, optimized methods will be applied to coral samples from experiments, which are expected to show changes in microbiome dynamics over time. These experiments include scenarios of thermal stress, reef environmental change, and disease development. These experiments will take place in Little Cayman, a location with reefs with contrasting temperature and other environmental properties, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands, a site of a recent coral disease outbreak.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.