Bacteria associated with the coral Echinopora lamellosa (Esper 1795) in the Indian Ocean - Zanzibar Region

Infectious diseases are now known to have major effects on the structure and function of coral reef ecosystems throughout the world. The number of recognized coral diseases has increased dramatically. The problem was first recognized in the Caribbean in the early 1970’s but has now been reported to affect coral communities worldwide. There is little information regarding bacteria associated with diseased corals in the Indian Ocean. However, one of the most common disease signs observed is a rapid loss of tissue leaving exposed white skeleton in contact with compromised tissue, followed by necrosis. These signs have been referred to as white plague in the Caribbean. Similar signs have been observed in the Indo-Pacific and are referred to as white syndrome. The pathogens associated with these disease signs depend on the species and geographic location of the corals. In the Caribbean, the disease was associated with Aurantimonas coralicida and in the Red Sea with Thalassomonas loyaeana, both newly described species. During exploratory surveys in the reefs near Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean, mucus samples were collected from healthy and apparently diseased Echinopora lamellosa (with signs of white syndrome) colonies. Samples were plated on two solid media: GASW (a nonspecific medium) and TCBS (Vibrio selective medium). Growth on TCBS was only found with diseased samples. Culturable isolates were characterized using metabolic profiling. A relatively high prevalence of Class Gamma Proteobacteria was found with diseased samples compared with healthy samples and Vibrio species were well represented in diseased samples.Keywords: Disease, coral reef, echinopora, Indian Ocean, white syndrom

La configuración legal de la libertad de enseñanza: ¿Un caso de captura regulatoria?

La Constitución garantiza a todas las personas la Libertad de Enseñanza y el Derecho a la Educación. De acuerdo a la interpretación tradicional, la Libertad de Enseñanza incluye el derecho de los establecimientos educacionales para seleccionar los alumnos que postulan a él y el Derecho a la Educación impone al Estado el deber de mantener establecimientos no selectivos. En consecuencia, la regulación legal en la materia establece un sistema altamente diferenciado que autoriza a cada tipo de escuela para implementar formas de selección de diversa intensidad. El resultado de lo anterior es un sistema de selección escolar que genera una segregación quefavorece marcadamente a alumnos de ciertas características,con un potencial desmedro del resultado agregado del sistema educativo (posible captura). El actual entendimiento de la Libertad de Enseñanza autoriza solamente modificaciones de alcance limitado al sistema vigente. Reformas más agresivas probablemente requieren un cambio en la forma en que se consagra o interpreta esta garantía, lo que implicaría un nuevo “pacto político” en la materia

Holonomy for Gerbes over Orbifolds

In this paper we compute explicit formulas for the holonomy map for a gerbe with connection over an orbifold. We show that the holonomy descends to a transgression map in Deligne cohomology. We prove that this recovers both the inner local systems in Ruan's theory of twisted orbifold cohomology and the local system of Freed-Hopkins-Teleman in their work in twisted K-theory. In the case in which the orbifold is simply a manifold we recover previous results of Gawedzki and Brylinski.Comment: 36 page

Metatranscriptome analysis of the reef-building coral Orbicella faveolata indicates holobiont response to coral disease

White Plague Disease (WPD) is implicated in coral reef decline in the Caribbean and is characterized by microbial community shifts in coral mucus and tissue. Studies thus far have focused on assessing microbial communities or the identification of specific pathogens, yet few have addressed holobiont response across metaorganism compartments in coral disease. Here, we report on the first metatranscriptomic assessment of the coral host, algal symbiont, and microbial compartment in order to survey holobiont structure and function in healthy and diseased samples from Orbicella faveolata collected at reef sites off Puerto Rico. Our data indicate holobiont-wide as well as compartment-specific responses to WPD. Gene expression changes in the diseased coral host involved proteins playing a role in innate immunity, cytoskeletal integrity, cell adhesion, oxidative stress, chemical defense, and retroelements. In contrast, the algal symbiont showed comparatively few expression changes, but of large magnitude, of genes related to stress, photosynthesis, and metal transport. Concordant with the coral host response, the bacterial compartment showed increased abundance of heat shock proteins, genes related to oxidative stress, DNA repair, and potential retroelement activity. Importantly, analysis of the expressed bacterial gene functions establishes the participation of multiple bacterial families in WPD pathogenesis and also suggests a possible involvement of viruses and/or phages in structuring the bacterial assemblage. In this study, we implement an experimental approach to partition the coral holobiont and resolve compartment- and taxa-specific responses in order to understand metaorganism function in coral disease

RNA-Seq of the Caribbean reef-building coral Orbicella faveolata (Scleractinia-Merulinidae) under bleaching and disease stress expands models of coral innate immunity

Climate change-driven coral disease outbreaks have led to widespread declines in coral populations. Early work on coral genomics established that corals have a complex innate immune system, and whole-transcriptome gene expression studies have revealed mechanisms by which the coral immune system responds to stress and disease. The present investigation expands bioinformatic data available to study coral molecular physiology through the assembly and annotation of a reference transcriptome of the Caribbean reef-building coral, Orbicella faveolata. Samples were collected during a warm water thermal anomaly, coral bleaching event and Caribbean yellow band disease outbreak in 2010 in Puerto Rico. Multiplex sequencing of RNA on the Illumina GAIIx platform and de novo transcriptome assembly by Trinity produced 70,745,177 raw short-sequence reads and 32,463 O. faveolata transcripts, respectively. The reference transcriptome was annotated with gene ontologies, mapped to KEGG pathways, and a predicted proteome of 20,488 sequences was generated. Protein families and signaling pathways that are essential in the regulation of innate immunity across Phyla were investigated in-depth. Results were used to develop models of evolutionarily conserved Wnt, Notch, Rig-like receptor, Nod-like receptor, and Dicer signaling. O. faveolata is a coral species that has been studied widely under climate-driven stress and disease, and the present investigation provides new data on the genes that putatively regulate its immune system

The complex structure of Fomes fomentarius represents an architectural design for high-performance ultralightweight materials

We thank C. Li from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany, for help during synchrotron measurements at the μSpot beamline at BESSY at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie in Berlin, Germany. We acknowledge the provision of facilities and technical support by Aalto University at the OtaNano Nanomicroscopy Center (Aalto-NMC). This work was supported by the Academy of Finland project 348628, the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation (Centre for Young Synbio Scientists), and the Academy of Finland Center of Excellence Program (2022–2029) in Life-Inspired Hybrid Materials (LIBER) project number 346106, and by internal funding from the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland Ltd. We also acknowledge the Dutch Research Council (NWO, domain Applied and Engineering Sciences: MYCOAT project number 18425) and the Horizon 2020 programs of the European Union (FUNGAR; project 58132 and iNEXT-Discovery, project 871037) for NMR studies. Furthermore, the high-field NMR experiments were supported by uNMR-NL, the National Roadmap Large-Scale NMR Facility of the Netherlands (NWO grant 184.032.207), and the uNMR-NL grid (NWO grant 184.035.002).High strength, hardness, and fracture toughness are mechanical properties that are not commonly associated with the fleshy body of a fungus. Here, we show with detailed structural, chemical, and mechanical characterization that Fomes fomentarius is an exception, and its architectural design is a source of inspiration for an emerging class of ultralightweight high-performance materials. Our findings reveal that F. fomentarius is a functionally graded material with three distinct layers that undergo multiscale hierarchical self-assembly. Mycelium is the primary component in all layers. However, in each layer, mycelium exhibits a very distinct microstructure with unique preferential orientation, aspect ratio, density, and branch length. We also show that an extracellular matrix acts as a reinforcing adhesive that differs in each layer in terms of quantity, polymeric content, and interconnectivity. These findings demonstrate how the synergistic interplay of the aforementioned features results in distinct mechanical properties for each layer.Peer reviewe

Deciphering coral disease dynamics: integrating host, microbiome, and the changing environment

Diseases of tropical reef organisms is an intensive area of study, but despite significant advances in methodology and the global knowledge base, identifying the proximate causes of disease outbreaks remains difficult. The dynamics of infectious wildlife diseases are known to be influenced by shifting interactions among the host, pathogen, and other members of the microbiome, and a collective body of work clearly demonstrates that this is also the case for the main foundation species on reefs, corals. Yet, among wildlife, outbreaks of coral diseases stand out as being driven largely by a changing environment. These outbreaks contributed not only to significant losses of coral species but also to whole ecosystem regime shifts. Here we suggest that to better decipher the disease dynamics of corals, we must integrate more holistic and modern paradigms that consider multiple and variable interactions among the three major players in epizootics: the host, its associated microbiome, and the environment. In this perspective, we discuss how expanding the pathogen component of the classic host-pathogen-environment disease triad to incorporate shifts in the microbiome leading to dysbiosis provides a better model for understanding coral disease dynamics. We outline and discuss issues arising when evaluating each component of this trio and make suggestions for bridging gaps between them. We further suggest that to best tackle these challenges, researchers must adjust standard paradigms, like the classic one pathogen-one disease model, that, to date, have been ineffectual at uncovering many of the emergent properties of coral reef disease dynamics. Lastly, we make recommendations for ways forward in the fields of marine disease ecology and the future of coral reef conservation and restoration given these observations

Managing marine disease emergencies in an era of rapid change

Infectious marine diseases can decimate populations and are increasing among some taxa due to global change and our increasing reliance on marine environments. Marine diseases become emergencies when significant ecological, economic or social impacts occur. We can prepare for and manage these emergencies through improved surveillance, and the development and iterative refinement of approaches to mitigate disease and its impacts. Improving surveillance requires fast, accurate diagnoses, forecasting disease risk and real-time monitoring of disease-promoting environmental conditions. Diversifying impact mitigation involves increasing host resilience to disease, reducing pathogen abundance and managing environmental factors that facilitate disease. Disease surveillance and mitigation can be adaptive if informed by research advances and catalysed by communication among observers, researchers and decision-makers using information-sharing platforms. Recent increases in the awareness of the threats posed by marine diseases may lead to policy frameworks that facilitate the responses and management that marine disease emergencies require