Abstract
Rhodoliths are free-living coralline algae (Rhodophyta, Corallinales) that are ecologically important for the functioning of marine environments. They form extensive beds distributed worldwide, providing a habitat and nursery for benthic organisms and space for fisheries, and are an important source of calcium carbonate. The Abrolhos Bank, off eastern Brazil, harbors the world’s largest continuous rhodolith bed (of ∼21 000 km2) and has one of the largest marine CaCO3 deposits (producing 25 megatons of CaCO3 per year). Nevertheless, there is a lack of information about the microbial diversity, photosynthetic potential and ecological interactions within the rhodolith holobiont. Herein, we performed an ecophysiologic and metagenomic analysis of the Abrolhos rhodoliths to understand their microbial composition and functional components. Rhodoliths contained a specific microbiome that displayed a significant enrichment in aerobic ammonia-oxidizing betaproteobacteria and dissimilative sulfate-reducing deltaproteobacteria. We also observed a significant contribution of bacterial guilds (that is, photolithoautotrophs, anaerobic heterotrophs, sulfide oxidizers, anoxygenic phototrophs and methanogens) in the rhodolith metagenome, suggested to have important roles in biomineralization. The increased hits in aromatic compounds, fatty acid and secondary metabolism subsystems hint at an important chemically mediated interaction in which a functional job partition among eukaryal, archaeal and bacterial groups allows the rhodolith holobiont to thrive in the global ocean. High rates of photosynthesis were measured for Abrolhos rhodoliths (52.16 μmol carbon m−2s−1), allowing the entire Abrolhos rhodolith bed to produce 5.65 × 105 tons C per day. This estimate illustrates the great importance of the Abrolhos rhodolith beds for dissolved carbon production in the South Atlantic Ocean.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge SISBIOTA CNPq/FAPES, FAPERJ, CNPq and CAPES for funding. We also acknowledge the Project for the International Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University, from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, Culture, and Technology, Japan. FT. Giselle Cavalcanti would like to thank the CNPq for research and PhD fellowships. This paper is part of the DSc requirements for Giselle da Silva Cavalcanti in the Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology Graduate Program of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
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Cavalcanti, G., Gregoracci, G., dos Santos, E. et al. Physiologic and metagenomic attributes of the rhodoliths forming the largest CaCO3 bed in the South Atlantic Ocean. ISME J 8, 52–62 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2013.133
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2013.133
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