Description
Marine Sponges are one of Earth’s earliest animals and are important to reef ecosystems, playing a role in water filtration, nutrient cycling, and structure creation. Climate change has played a major role in shifting reef ecosystems, with recent research suggesting that, as tropical coral populations decline due to ocean acidification and warming, sponges may become a dominant reef species, given they are more tolerant to these stressors. In an effort to understand how climate change will impact sponges, we investigate the bacterial community associated with marine sponges since bacteria play an important role in ecosystem health and can represent up to 60% of the dry weight of a sponge. Sponges harbor a diverse community of bacterial symbionts; thus, we hope to capture how they respond to climate change. In this study, we target cryptobenthic sponges, as they are understudied and their significance is becoming more obvious with climate change. In collaboration with the Hawai’ian Institute of Marine Biology, sponges were sampled for DNA from Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) in flow-through mesocosms exposed to current and projected ocean environmental conditions in Hawai’i. We plan to use 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding to compare the bacterial communities of three separate sponge groups that have been exposed to current and acidified-heated (+2°C, -0.2 pH units) conditions over a 2-year period. Additionally, we will use culturing techniques to explore full genome sequencing to understand the functional roles of these bacteria. Capturing possible shifts in bacterial communities can identify indicators of host and reef health while gaining deeper insight into how functional changes may impact reef ecosystems, especially under environmental changes. Furthermore, these findings have the potential to support future biotechnological applications, as sponge symbionts are one of the largest marine producers of novel compounds with significant pharmaceutical potential.