Nature Communications (Jun 2023)

Diversity of the Pacific Ocean coral reef microbiome

  • Pierre E. Galand,
  • Hans-Joachim Ruscheweyh,
  • Guillem Salazar,
  • Corentin Hochart,
  • Nicolas Henry,
  • Benjamin C. C. Hume,
  • Pedro H. Oliveira,
  • Aude Perdereau,
  • Karine Labadie,
  • Caroline Belser,
  • Emilie Boissin,
  • Sarah Romac,
  • Julie Poulain,
  • Guillaume Bourdin,
  • Guillaume Iwankow,
  • Clémentine Moulin,
  • Eric J. Armstrong,
  • David A. Paz-García,
  • Maren Ziegler,
  • Sylvain Agostini,
  • Bernard Banaigs,
  • Emmanuel Boss,
  • Chris Bowler,
  • Colomban de Vargas,
  • Eric Douville,
  • Michel Flores,
  • Didier Forcioli,
  • Paola Furla,
  • Eric Gilson,
  • Fabien Lombard,
  • Stéphane Pesant,
  • Stéphanie Reynaud,
  • Olivier P. Thomas,
  • Romain Troublé,
  • Didier Zoccola,
  • Christian R. Voolstra,
  • Rebecca Vega Thurber,
  • Shinichi Sunagawa,
  • Patrick Wincker,
  • Denis Allemand,
  • Serge Planes

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38500-x
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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Abstract Coral reefs are among the most diverse ecosystems on Earth. They support high biodiversity of multicellular organisms that strongly rely on associated microorganisms for health and nutrition. However, the extent of the coral reef microbiome diversity and its distribution at the oceanic basin-scale remains to be explored. Here, we systematically sampled 3 coral morphotypes, 2 fish species, and planktonic communities in 99 reefs from 32 islands across the Pacific Ocean, to assess reef microbiome composition and biogeography. We show a very large richness of reef microorganisms compared to other environments, which extrapolated to all fishes and corals of the Pacific, approximates the current estimated total prokaryotic diversity for the entire Earth. Microbial communities vary among and within the 3 animal biomes (coral, fish, plankton), and geographically. For corals, the cross-ocean patterns of diversity are different from those known for other multicellular organisms. Within each coral morphotype, community composition is always determined by geographic distance first, both at the island and across ocean scale, and then by environment. Our unprecedented sampling effort of coral reef microbiomes, as part of the Tara Pacific expedition, provides new insight into the global microbial diversity, the factors driving their distribution, and the biocomplexity of reef ecosystems.