CORAL HEALTH ASSESSMENT PROGRAM STUDIES

Microbial diversity

Small fragments of coral are collected for microbial analysis.

The primary goals of this study are to (1) characterize the biodiversity of microorganisms and microalgae of the Hawaiian Archipelago, and (2) examine the effects of anthropogenic (human) stressors and global climate change on marine microbial communities. This work seeks to determine if microbes and corals form species-specific associations and whether these associations vary. The diversity of microbes found in the seawater will be assessed, along with other environmental variables including temperature, salinity, bacterial density, nutrient and chlorophyll concentrations.

Based on analysis thus far, it appears that the bacterial communities associated with Porites lobata from French Frigate Shoals (FFS) are the most similar to one another compared to other atolls. It is important to identify the particular groups of bacteria that contribute to the differences we observed between atolls, as corals with different groups of resident bacteria may respond differently to environmental changes. Seawater samples taken from the Monument appear to be more similar to one another than to the other locations.

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