Global Coral Microbiome Project

​Tropical reef invertebrates, such as corals and sponges, host extensive populations of microorganisms composed not only of bacteria, but also Archaea, viruses, protists, and dinoflagellates. The term holobiont was coined to describe the relationship between eukaryotic hosts and their closely associated microbial communities. Microorganisms can influence a corals entire life cycle, driving settlement and recruitment success, nutrient and vitamin acquisition, and defense against pathogens. Microbes can also rapidly adapt to changing environmental conditions, making them key indicators of shifts in abiotic (e.g. pH and temperature) and biotic (e.g. competition and disease) stressors. In so doing, microorganisms may have far-reaching ecosystem level impacts, driving shifts in host range, metabolic capabilities and other essential functions by providing long-lived organisms such as corals with greater physioogical plasticity and resilience in the face of climate change stressors.

Friends and colleagues are working together in the labs of Dr. Rebecca Vega Thurber (Oregon State University) and Dr. Monica Medina (Penn State University) to sample corals from around the world in an effort to piece together the diversity of coral-associated microbial communities.

My efforts in Dr. Michael Lessers lab at the University of New Hampshire to study the global diversity of coral diazotrophs, or bacteria and archaea associated with Nitrogen cycling, are quite complimentary.

Please find more information about the Global Microbiome Project here

Follow their travels and collections​ on the Cnidae Gritty blog