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Antimicrobial Activity of Sponges and Corals

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Coral Health and Disease

Abstract

Bacteria and other microorganisms are ubiquitous in the marine environment. They are taxonomically diverse, biologically active and colonize all marine habitats, from the deep oceans to the shallowest estuaries (Austin 1988; Rheinheimer 1992), as well as coral reefs (Ducklow 1990). Living benthic marine organisms such as sponges and corals are frequently colonized by bacteria. Sponges are known to harbor a diverse range of microorganisms (Bergquist 1978; Wilkinson 1978). In some cases, up to 50% of the sponge weight was attributed to their symbiotic bacteria (Wilkinson 1978). The surface of living corals is covered by mucus (Ducklow and Mitchell 1979a). This mucus layer is colonized by bacteria, allowing the establishment of a bacterial community that can be characteristic to a particular coral species (Mitchell and Chet 1975; Ducklow and Mitchell 1979b; Rublee et al. 1980; Segal and Ducklow 1982; Ritchie et al. 1994; Rohwer et al. 2002). Some of these bacteria can be pathogenic to sponges and corals, and may initiate disease, such as tissue necrosis in sponges (Webster et al. 2002), and several diseases in corals, such as black band disease (Antonius 1985; Carlton and Richardson 1995), white plague type II (Smith et al. 1996; Richardson et al. 1998), tissue necrosis (Hodgson 1990; Ben-Haim and Rosenberg 2002), and even bleaching of the Mediterranean scleractinian coral Oculina patagonica (Kushmaro et al. 1996, 1997). On the other hand, bacteria could serve as beneficial symbionts or as benign associates. For example, Gil-Turnes et al. (1989) showed that bacteria on the surface of externally held eggs of the shrimp Palaeman macrodactylus produce a metabolite that inhibits fungal infections that are lethal to the eggs. Therefore, sponges and corals need the ability to regulate the bacteria they encounter and to resist microbial colonization and the invasion of potential pathogens in order to prevent possible detrimental effects. One method of combating microbial attack is by chemical defense.

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  1. Dovi Kelman
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Microbiology & Biotechnology, Tel Aviv University, 69978, Ramat Aviv, Israel

    Eugene Rosenberg

  2. Department of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, 69978, Ramat Aviv, Israel

    Yossi Loya

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Kelman, D. (2004). Antimicrobial Activity of Sponges and Corals. In: Rosenberg, E., Loya, Y. (eds) Coral Health and Disease. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-06414-6_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-06414-6_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-05863-9

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