Assessment of the microbial communities associated with white syndrome and brown jelly syndrome in aquarium corals

Bacterial and ciliate assemblages associated with aquarium corals displaying white syndrome (WS) and brown jelly syndrome (BJS) were investigated. Healthy (n = 10) and diseased corals (WS n = 18; BJS n = 3) were analysed for 16S rRNA gene bacterial diversity, total bacterial abundance and vibrio-specific 16S rRNA gene abundance. This was conducted alongside analysis of 18S rRNA gene sequenc-ing targeting ciliates, a group of organisms largely overlooked for their potential as causal agents of coral disease. Despite significant differences between healthy and diseased corals in their 16S rRNA gene bacterial diversity, total bacterial abundance and vibrio-specific rRNA gene abundance, no domi-nant bacterial ribotypes were found consistently within the diseased samples. In contrast, one ciliate morphotype, named Morph 3 in this study (GenBank Accession Numbers JF831358 for the ciliate isolated from WS and JF831359 for the ciliate isolated from BJS) was observed to burrow into and underneath the coral tissues at the disease lesion in both disease types and contained algal endosym-bionts indicative of coral tissue ingestion. This ciliate was observed in larger numbers in BJS compared to WS, giving rise to the characteristic jelly like substance in BJS. Morph 3 varied by only 1 bp over 549 bp from the recently described Morph 1 ciliate (GenBank Accession No. JN626268), which has been shown to be present in field samples of WS and Brown Band Disease (BrB) in the Indo-Pacific. This result indicates a close relationship between these aquarium diseases and those observed in the wild

Interview with Michael Kirby: Commonwealth Oral History Project

Interview with Michael Kirby carried out in Sydney on Friday, 28th March, 2014 as part of the Commonwealth Oral History Project. The project aims to produce a unique digital research resource on the oral history of the Commonwealth since 1965 through sixty oral history interviews with leading figures in the recent history of the organisation. It will provide an essential research tool for anyone investigating the history of the Commonwealth and will serve to promote interest in and understanding of the organisation. Biography: Kirby, Michael, 1939-. Deputy President of the Australian Conciliation & Arbitration Commission, 1974-1975; inaugural Chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission, 1975-84. Judge of the Federal Court of Australia, 1983-1984; President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal, 1984-1996; Judge on the Court of Appeal of Solomon Islands, 1995-1996; Australian High Court Judge, 1996-2009; Commonwealth Eminent Persons' Group 2010-2011; UNDP Global Commission of HIV and the Law, 2010-2012; Commissioner of the UNAIDS Commission on Sustainable Health, 2013-2014; Head of the Commission of Inquiry on Alleged Human Rights Violations in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, 2013-2014

Interview with Michael Frendo: Commonwealth Oral History Project

Interview with Michael Frendo, conducted 31st January 2014 in London as part of the Commonwealth Oral History Project. The project aims to produce a unique digital research resource on the oral history of the Commonwealth since 1965 through sixty oral history interviews with leading figures in the recent history of the organisation. It will provide an essential research tool for anyone investigating the history of the Commonwealth and will serve to promote interest in and understanding of the organisation. Biography: Frendo, Michael. 1955- . Elected to the House of Representatives of Malta in 1987. Parliamentary Secretary for Youth, Culture and Consumer Protection, 1990-92. Minister for Youth and Arts, 1992-94. Minister for Transport, Communications and Technology, 1994-96. Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2004-08. Member and Chair, Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group. Speaker of the House of Representatives of Malta, 2010-13. Lawyer and Consultant, Valletta, 2013- . Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University of Malta, 2013- . Chairman of Banif Bank (Malta) Plc, 2013-

Completing the life cycle of a broadcast spawning coral in a closed mesocosm

Studies of broadcast spawning in corals are fundamental to our understanding of early life history characteristics, reproductive biology, restoration etc. Spawning of corals for research is routinely conducted, but this is mostly restricted to sites adjacent to reefs and from broodstock collected from the wild just prior to gamete release. Only recently has it been possible to induce predictable broadcast spawning in an ex situ environment, and nobody has successfully closed the life cycle (i.e., production of an F2 generation) of these corals. Here, for the first time, we closed the life cycle of the broadcast spawning coral Acropora millepora in a fully closed ex situ mesocosm. This breakthrough has numerous implications for our understanding of reproductive biology, specifically it offers potential to deepen our understanding of the genetic influence on adaptive traits such as heat tolerance, growth and disease resistance over multiple generations

Maintaining natural spawning timing in Acropora corals following long distance inter-continental transportation.

The majority of research focusing on coral reproductive biology (e.g. spawning timing and synchrony) is carried out in facilities adjacent to reefs that the corals originated from. This is in part because transporting corals for long distances by air leads to sub-lethal stress that may confound the results of any experimental study. However, these constraints often mean research associated with coral reproductive timing is restricted to relatively few locations. To assess the potential for studying environmental drivers of spawning timing in corals in captivity (defined here as ex situ closed aquaria), we aimed to transport 14 large (16-37 cm) Acropora hyacinthus colonies from reefs in Singapore to a closed aquarium system in London (a journey time of ~34 hours). Collection was purposefully timed to occur just before the predicted annual mass spawning event and on the day of transportation it was noted that 12 of the 14 corals contained large visible oocytes. The ‘inverted submersion method’ was applied and the water used for transport was buffered to ensure the colonies remained healthy throughout their travel time. At the end location all colonies were placed into a purpose built aquarium research system which allowed for the approximation of the environmental conditions found on the fringing reefs south of Singapore (the original location). While three colonies appeared partially bleached (visibly pale) and one colony suffered from partial tissue loss, all colonies (i.e. 100% of those collected) were still alive at the time of writing (28 months post collection). More importantly, all corals that were gravid at the time of collection spawned ex situ within the same lunar month as those in the wild (within 3-4 nights of each other). This paper describes the procedures for carrying out long distance transportation of large gravid broadcast spawning coral colonies from reef sites to public aquariums or research facilities around the world for the purpose of ex situ spawning research.N

Completing the life cycle of a broadcast spawning coral in a closed mesocosm

Studies of broadcast spawning in corals are fundamental to our understanding of early life history characteristics, reproductive biology, restoration etc. Spawning of corals for research is routinely conducted, but this is mostly restricted to sites adjacent to reefs and from broodstock collected from the wild just prior to gamete release. Only recently has it been possible to induce predictable broadcast spawning in an ex situ environment, and nobody has successfully closed the life cycle (i.e., production of an F2 generation) of these corals. Here, for the first time, we closed the life cycle of the broadcast spawning coral Acropora millepora in a fully closed ex situ mesocosm. This breakthrough has numerous implications for our understanding of reproductive biology, specifically it offers potential to deepen our understanding of the genetic influence on adaptive traits such as heat tolerance, growth and disease resistance over multiple generations.N

Species-Specific Variations in the Metabolomic Profiles of Acropora hyacinthus and Acropora millepora Mask Acute Temperature Stress Effects in Adult Coral Colonies

Coral reefs are suffering unprecedented declines in health state on a global scale. Some have suggested that human assisted evolution or assisted gene flow may now be necessary to effectively restore reefs and pre-condition them for future climate change. An understanding of the key metabolic processes in corals, including under stressed conditions, would greatly facilitate the effective application of such interventions. To date, however, there has been little research on corals at this level, particularly regarding studies of the metabolome of Scleractinian corals. Here, the metabolomic profiles [measured using 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H NMR) and ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)] of two dominant reef building corals, Acropora hyacinthus and A. millepora, from two distinct geographical locations (Australia and Singapore) were characterized. We assessed how an acute temperature stress (an increase of 3.25°C ± 0.28 from ambient control levels over 8 days), shifted the corals’ baseline metabolomic profiles. Regardless of the profiling method utilized, metabolomic signatures of coral colonies were significantly distinct between coral species, a result supporting previous work. However, this strong species-specific metabolomic signature appeared to mask any changes resulting from the acute heat stress. On closer examination, we were able to discriminate between control and temperature stressed groups using a partial least squares discriminant analysis classification model (PLSDA). However, in all cases “late” components needed to be selected (i.e., 7 and 8 instead of 1 and 2), suggesting any treatment effect was small, relative to other sources of variation. This highlights the importance of pre-characterizing the coral colony metabolomes, and of factoring that knowledge into any experimental design that seeks to understand the apparently subtle metabolic effects of acute heat stress on adult corals. Further research is therefore needed to decouple these apparent individual and species-level metabolomic responses to climate change in corals.NER

Consensus Guidelines for Advancing Coral Holobiont Genome and Specimen Voucher Deposition

Coral research is being ushered into the genomic era. To fully capitalize on the potential discoveries from this genomic revolution, the rapidly increasing number of high-quality genomes requires effective pairing with rigorous taxonomic characterizations of specimens and the contextualization of their ecological relevance. However, to date there is no formal framework that genomicists, taxonomists, and coral scientists can collectively use to systematically acquire and link these data. Spurred by the recently announced “Coral symbiosis sensitivity to environmental change hub” under the “Aquatic Symbiosis Genomics Project” - a collaboration between the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to generate gold-standard genome sequences for coral animal hosts and their associated Symbiodiniaceae microalgae (among the sequencing of many other symbiotic aquatic species) - we outline consensus guidelines to reconcile different types of data. The metaorganism nature of the coral holobiont provides a particular challenge in this context and is a key factor to consider for developing a framework to consolidate genomic, taxonomic, and ecological (meta)data. Ideally, genomic data should be accompanied by taxonomic references, i.e., skeletal vouchers as formal morphological references for corals and strain specimens in the case of microalgal and bacterial symbionts (cultured isolates). However, exhaustive taxonomic characterization of all coral holobiont member species is currently not feasible simply because we do not have a comprehensive understanding of all the organisms that constitute the coral holobiont. Nevertheless, guidelines on minimal, recommended, and ideal-case descriptions for the major coral holobiont constituents (coral animal, Symbiodiniaceae microalgae, and prokaryotes) will undoubtedly help in future referencing and will facilitate comparative studies. We hope that the guidelines outlined here, which we will adhere to as part of the Aquatic Symbiosis Genomics Project sub-hub focused on coral symbioses, will be useful to a broader community and their implementation will facilitate cross- and meta-data comparisons and analyses.CV acknowledges funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG), grants 433042944 and 458901010. Open Access publication fees are covered by an institutional agreement of the University of Konstanz