SYDNEY, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Scientists have completed the first comprehensive survey of the microbiome of the open waters of reef systems on Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
Scientists can now measure changes in the thousands of different and invisible microbes that contribute to healthy reef communities in the world's largest coral reef system, according to a statement released by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) on Thursday.
Published in Nature, the research led by Australia's University of Queensland (UQ) and the AIMS documented more than 800,000 microbial genomes from seawater samples collected at 48 reefs, identifying over 500 new bacterial species and more than 300,000 distinct viruses in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef.
The team discovered 5,283 different bacterial and archaeal genomes representing 876 species, about two-thirds of which were previously unknown.
Researchers have compiled the findings into the Great Barrier Reef Microbial Genomes Database, which will be available to all reef scientists.
"Now, we can start to explore what makes a healthy reef microbiome and how these invisible communities respond to changes on the Great Barrier Reef such as bleaching, storms, sediment, fishing and other stresses," said Prof. Philip Hugenholtz, a UQ microbiologist and the study's senior author.
Senior AIMS research scientist Yun Kit Yeoh said advances in DNA sequencing had made it possible to study microbiomes across a massive ecosystem, the Great Barrier Reef.
"These microbes are important. Microalgae produce most of the oxygen we breathe and underpin food chains in the open oceans," Yeoh said. ■
