Maribacter halichondriae sp. nov., isolated from the marine sponge Halichondria panicea, displays features of a sponge-associated life style.

A new member of the family Flavobacteriaceae (termed Hal144) was isolated from the marine breadcrumb sponge Halichondria panicea. Sponge material was collected in 2018 at Schilksee which is located in the Kiel Fjord (Baltic Sea, Germany). Phylogenetic analysis of the full-length Hal144 16S rRNA gene sequence revealed similarities from 94.

Biodiversity, environmental drivers, and sustainability of the global deep-sea sponge microbiome.

In the deep ocean symbioses between microbes and invertebrates are emerging as key drivers of ecosystem health and services. We present a large-scale analysis of microbial diversity in deep-sea sponges (Porifera) from scales of sponge individuals to ocean basins, covering 52 locations, 1077 host individuals translating into 169 sponge species (including understudied glass sponges), and 469 reference samples, collected anew during 21 ship-based expeditions. We demonstrate the impacts of the sponge microbial abundance status, geographic distance, sponge phylogeny, and the physical-biogeochemical environment as drivers of microbiome composition, in descending order of relevance.

sp. nov., a bacterium isolated from a hypersaline lake.

Strain Llam7 was isolated from microbial mat samples from the hypersaline lake Salar de Llamará, located in Taracapá region in the hyper-arid core of the Atacama Desert (Chile). Phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and genomic traits were studied. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences assigned the strain to the family with affiliation to the genera and .

Deciphering a Marine Bone-Degrading Microbiome Reveals a Complex Community Effort.

The marine bone biome is a complex assemblage of macro- and microorganisms; however, the enzymatic repertoire to access bone-derived nutrients remains unknown. The bone matrix is a composite material made up mainly of organic collagen and inorganic hydroxyapatite. We conducted field experiments to study microbial assemblages that can use organic bone components as nutrient source.

Bacterial precursors and unsaturated long-chain fatty acids are biomarkers of North-Atlantic deep-sea demosponges.

Sponges produce distinct fatty acids (FAs) that (potentially) can be used as chemotaxonomic and ecological biomarkers to study endosymbiont-host interactions and the functional ecology of sponges. Here, we present FA profiles of five common habitat-building deep-sea sponges (class Demospongiae, order Tetractinellida), which are classified as high microbial abundance (HMA) species. Geodia hentscheli, G.

Microbial Strategies for Survival in the Glass Sponge .

Few studies have explored the microbiomes of glass sponges (Hexactinellida). The present study seeks to elucidate the composition of the microbiota associated with the glass sponge and the functional strategies of the main symbionts. We combined microscopic approaches with metagenome-guided microbial genome reconstruction and amplicon community profiling toward this goal.

Genomic blueprints of sponge-prokaryote symbiosis are shared by low abundant and cultivatable Alphaproteobacteria.

Marine sponges are early-branching, filter-feeding metazoans that usually host complex microbiomes comprised of several, currently uncultivatable symbiotic lineages. Here, we use a low-carbon based strategy to cultivate low-abundance bacteria from Spongia officinalis. This approach favoured the growth of Alphaproteobacteria strains in the genera Anderseniella, Erythrobacter, Labrenzia, Loktanella, Ruegeria, Sphingorhabdus, Tateyamaria and Pseudovibrio, besides two likely new genera in the Rhodobacteraceae family.

Marine Sponges as Hot Spots: Genomic Insights and High-Resolution Visualization of an Abundant and Diverse Symbiotic Clade.

Members of the widespread bacterial phylum can dominate high-microbial-abundance (HMA) sponge microbiomes. In the Sponge Microbiome Project, sequences amounted to 20 to 30% of the total microbiome of certain HMA sponge genera with the classes/clades SAR202, , and being the most prominent. We performed metagenomic and single-cell genomic analyses to elucidate the functional gene repertoire of symbionts of Aplysina aerophoba.

Metagenomic binning reveals versatile nutrient cycling and distinct adaptive features in alphaproteobacterial symbionts of marine sponges.

Marine sponges are early-branched metazoans known to harbor dense and diverse microbial communities. Yet the role of the so far uncultivable alphaproteobacterial lineages that populate these sessile invertebrates remains unclear. We applied a sequence composition-dependent binning approach to assemble one Rhodospirillaceae genome from the Spongia officinalis microbial metagenome and contrast its functional features with those of closely related sponge-associated and free-living genomes.

Phylogeny and genomics of SAUL, an enigmatic bacterial lineage frequently associated with marine sponges.

Many marine sponges contain dense and diverse communities of associated microorganisms. Members of the 'sponge-associated unclassified lineage' (SAUL) are frequently recorded from sponges, yet little is known about these bacteria. Here we investigated the distribution and phylogenetic status of SAUL.

Metagenomic binning of a marine sponge microbiome reveals unity in defense but metabolic specialization.

Marine sponges are ancient metazoans that are populated by distinct and highly diverse microbial communities. In order to obtain deeper insights into the functional gene repertoire of the Mediterranean sponge Aplysina aerophoba, we combined Illumina short-read and PacBio long-read sequencing followed by un-targeted metagenomic binning. We identified a total of 37 high-quality bins representing 11 bacterial phyla and two candidate phyla.

Draft Genome Sequences of " Synechococcus spongiarum," Cyanobacterial Symbionts of the Mediterranean Sponge .

We report here four draft genome sequences belonging to clade F of the cyanobacterium " Synechococcus spongiarum" of the marine sponge , which were collected from two nearby locations in the northern Adriatic Sea. The sequences provide the basis for within-clade comparisons between members of this widespread group of cyanobacterial sponge symbionts.

An Enrichment of CRISPR and Other Defense-Related Features in Marine Sponge-Associated Microbial Metagenomes.

Many marine sponges are populated by dense and taxonomically diverse microbial consortia. We employed a metagenomics approach to unravel the differences in the functional gene repertoire among three Mediterranean sponge species, and seawater. Different signatures were observed between sponge and seawater metagenomes with regard to microbial community composition, GC content, and estimated bacterial genome size.

Lifestyle evolution in cyanobacterial symbionts of sponges.

Unlabelled: The "Candidatus Synechococcus spongiarum" group includes different clades of cyanobacteria with high 16S rRNA sequence identity (~99%) and is the most abundant and widespread cyanobacterial symbiont of marine sponges. The first draft genome of a "Ca. Synechococcus spongiarum" group member was recently published, providing evidence of genome reduction by loss of genes involved in several nonessential functions.