Diversity, structure and convergent evolution of the global sponge microbiome

Torsten Thomas (1) , Lucas Moitinho-Silva (1) , Miguel Lurgi (2) , Johannes Björk (3) , Cole Easson (4) , Carmen Astudillo-García (5) , Julie Olson (6) , Patrick Erwin (7) , Susanna López-Legentil (7) , Heidi Luter (8) , Andia Chaves-Fonnegra (9) , Rodrigo Costa (10) , Peter Schupp (11) , Laura Steindler (12) , Dirk Erpenbeck (13) , Jack Gilbert (14) , Rob Knight (15) , Gail Ackermann (16) , Jose Victor Lopez (17) , Michael Taylor (5) , Robert Thacker (18) , José Montoya (3) , Ute Hentschel (19) , Nicole Webster (20)

1 School of Biological Sciences [Sydney]
2 University of Adelaide
3 SETE - Station d'écologie théorique et expérimentale
4 UAB - University of Alabama at Birmingham [ Birmingham]
5 University of Auckland [Auckland]
6 UA - University of Alabama [Tuscaloosa]
7 UNC - University of North Carolina [Wilmington]
8 Charles Darwin University [Australia]
9 Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography
10 CCMAR - Centre of Marine Sciences [Faro]
11 ICBM - Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment
12 University of Haifa [Haifa]
13 LMU - Ludwig Maximilian University [Munich] = Ludwig Maximilians Universität München
14 University of Chicago
15 UC - University of California
16 Dominican University of California
17 NSU - Nova Southeastern University
18 Stony Brook University - Department of Ecology and Evolution - USA
19 Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Kiel
20 AIMS Townsville - Australian Institute of Marine Science [Townsville]

Sponges (phylum Porifera) are early-diverging metazoa renowned for establishing complex microbial symbioses. Here we present a global Porifera microbiome survey, set out to establish the ecological and evolutionary drivers of these host–microbe interactions. We show that sponges are a reservoir of exceptional microbial diversity and major contributors to the total microbial diversity of the world’s oceans. Little commonality in species composition or structure is evident across the phylum, although symbiont communities are characterized by specialists and generalists rather than opportunists. Core sponge microbiomes are stable and characterized by generalist symbionts exhibiting amensal and/or commensal interactions. Symbionts that are phylogenetically unique to sponges do not disproportionally contribute to the core microbiome, and host phylogeny impacts complexity rather than composition of the symbiont community. Our findings support a model of independent assembly and evolution in symbiont communities across the entire host phylum, with convergent forces resulting in analogous community organization and interactions.

Mots clés: Sponges; phylum Porifera; evolution; diversity; Microbial ecology; Microbiome

Domaines: Biologie végétale

Torsten Thomas, Lucas Moitinho-Silva, Miguel Lurgi, Johannes Björk, Cole Easson, et al.. Diversity, structure and convergent evolution of the global sponge microbiome. Nature Communications, 2016, 7, ⟨10.1038/ncomms11870⟩. ⟨hal-02962244⟩