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      Beneath the surface: community assembly and functions of the coral skeleton microbiome

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          Abstract

          Coral microbial ecology is a burgeoning field, driven by the urgency of understanding coral health and slowing reef loss due to climate change. Coral resilience depends on its microbiota, and both the tissue and the underlying skeleton are home to a rich biodiversity of eukaryotic, bacterial and archaeal species that form an integral part of the coral holobiont. New techniques now enable detailed studies of the endolithic habitat, and our knowledge of the skeletal microbial community and its eco-physiology is increasing rapidly, with multiple lines of evidence for the importance of the skeletal microbiota in coral health and functioning. Here, we review the roles these organisms play in the holobiont, including nutritional exchanges with the coral host and decalcification of the host skeleton. Microbial metabolism causes steep physico-chemical gradients in the skeleton, creating micro-niches that, along with dispersal limitation and priority effects, define the fine-scale microbial community assembly. Coral bleaching causes drastic changes in the skeletal microbiome, which can mitigate bleaching effects and promote coral survival during stress periods, but may also have detrimental effects. Finally, we discuss the idea that the skeleton may function as a microbial reservoir that can promote recolonization of the tissue microbiome following dysbiosis and help the coral holobiont return to homeostasis.

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          Biodiversity and stability in grasslands

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            Biodiversity as spatial insurance in heterogeneous landscapes.

            The potential consequences of biodiversity loss for ecosystem functioning and services at local scales have received considerable attention during the last decade, but little is known about how biodiversity affects ecosystem processes and stability at larger spatial scales. We propose that biodiversity provides spatial insurance for ecosystem functioning by virtue of spatial exchanges among local systems in heterogeneous landscapes. We explore this hypothesis by using a simple theoretical metacommunity model with explicit local consumer-resource dynamics and dispersal among systems. Our model shows that variation in dispersal rate affects the temporal mean and variability of ecosystem productivity strongly and nonmonotonically through two mechanisms: spatial averaging by the intermediate-type species that tends to dominate the landscape at high dispersal rates, and functional compensations between species that are made possible by the maintenance of species diversity. The spatial insurance effects of species diversity are highest at the intermediate dispersal rates that maximize local diversity. These results have profound implications for conservation and management. Knowledge of spatial processes across ecosystems is critical to predict the effects of landscape changes on both biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and services.
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              Trophic Structure and Productivity of a Windward Coral Reef Community on Eniwetok Atoll

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                riccif@student.unimelb.edu.au
                vanessa.marcelino@sydney.edu.au
                linda.blackall@unimelb.edu.au
                mkuhl@bio.ku.dk
                momedinamunoz@gmail.com
                heroen@unimelb.edu.au
                Journal
                Microbiome
                Microbiome
                Microbiome
                BioMed Central (London )
                2049-2618
                12 December 2019
                12 December 2019
                2019
                : 7
                : 159
                Affiliations
                [1 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2179 088X, GRID grid.1008.9, School of BioSciences, , University of Melbourne, ; Parkville, 3010 Australia
                [2 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1936 834X, GRID grid.1013.3, Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity, Sydney Medical School, Westmead Clinical School, , The University of Sydney, ; Sydney, NSW 2006 Australia
                [3 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0674 042X, GRID grid.5254.6, Marine Biological Section, , University of Copenhagen, ; Strandpromenaden 5, DK-3000 Helsingør, Denmark
                [4 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1936 7611, GRID grid.117476.2, Climate Change Cluster, , University of Technology Sydney, ; Ultimo, NSW 2007 Australia
                [5 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2097 4281, GRID grid.29857.31, Pennsylvania State University, ; University Park, PA 16802 USA
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6305-4749
                Article
                762
                10.1186/s40168-019-0762-y
                6909473
                31831078
                65690470-2f1c-4af9-bc58-240e67c82538
                © The Author(s). 2019

                Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

                History
                : 16 May 2019
                : 17 October 2019
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                © The Author(s) 2019

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