AEM Accepts, published online ahead of print on 23 October 2009

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Appl. Environ. Microbiol. doi:10.1128/AEM.01418-09
Copyright (c) 2009, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

Influence of species specificity and other factors on bacteria associated with Stylophora pistillata in Taiwan

Mei-Jhu Hong, Yi-Ting Yu, Chao-Lun A. Chen, Pei-Wen Chiang, and Sen-Lin Tang^*

Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, Nan-Kang, Taipei, 11529, Taiwan

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: sltang{at}gate.sinica.edu.tw.

Species of bacteria associated with Stylophora pistillata were determined by analyses of 16S ribosomal genes. Coral samples were taken from two distinct sites at Kenting, in the far south of Taiwan; three coral colonies at each site were tagged and sampled in the winter and summer of 2007. Six hundred 16S rRNA gene clones were selected and sequenced for diversity analysis and community comparison. LIBSHUFF and non parametric multiple dimensional scaling analyses showed variations in the composition of the coral-associated bacteria in the different samples, suggesting that seasonal and geographic factors and variations in individual coral colonies were all vital drivers of the structure of the S. pistillata-associated bacterial community. To examine the association between species specificity and environmental impacts on the structure of the coral-associated bacterial community, we conducted an integrated, comparative analysis of 44 coral-associated bacterial datasets, including this study's data. The clustering analysis suggests that the influence of spatial and temporal factors on coral-associated bacteria population structure is considerable; nonetheless the effect of species specificity is still detectable in some coral species, especially those from the Caribbean Sea.