Mercado Capote, Alejandro J.

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    No guts, no reef: Understanding the microbiome, genetic diversity, and phylogenetic relationships of the Puerto Rican long-spined black sea urchin, Diadema antillarum, a keystone species of the Caribbean reef
    (2020-11-17) Mercado Capote, Alejandro J.; Martínez Cruzado, Juan C.; College of Arts and Sciences - Sciences; Majeske, Audrey; Schizas, Nikolaos V.; Oleksyk, Taras K.; Department of Biology; Román Pérez, Rosa I.
    In this paper we describe the gut microbiome of the Puerto Rican keystone sea urchin Diadema antillarum. We also used next generation sequencing of the cytochrome b region to examine the phylogenetic relationships among the different samples. The gut microbial communities were mostly populated with Proteobacteria, in which a large proportion were in the class Alphaproteobacteria, followed by classes Betaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria. Firmicutes, Clostrodiales and Tenericutes were other represented phyla in the gut tissue samples of D. antillarum. Within Tenericutes, only several animals were harboring the species Candidatus hepatoplasma. There is reason to suspect that all these bacteria do not represent a threat to the sea urchin except for the Firmicutes. Clostridium are a known type of highly virulent bacteria that could potentially be the main cause behind the great Diadema antillarum die off. Bioinformatic and statistical analysis using pairwise chi-square analysis also reveal that anthropogenic activities can impact the microbiome. Current strength and relative position on the island may also play a role on defining the microbiome. The sea urchins living upstream have a statistically different composition that animals living downstream. These findings paint a clearer picture of the Puerto Rican D. antillarum population that can aid in the efforts to restore former numbers of these animals.