AUTHOR=Gardner Stephanie G. , Nitschke Matthew R. , O’Brien James , Motti Cherie A. , Seymour Justin R. , Ralph Peter J. , Petrou Katherina , Raina Jean-Baptiste TITLE=Increased DMSP availability during thermal stress influences DMSP-degrading bacteria in coral mucus JOURNAL=Frontiers in Marine Science VOLUME=9 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.912862 DOI=10.3389/fmars.2022.912862 ISSN=2296-7745 ABSTRACT=
Reef-building corals are among the largest producers of dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), an essential compound in marine biogeochemical cycles. DMSP can be catabolised in coral mucus by a wide diversity of coral-associated bacteria, where it can either be demethylated, leading to the incorporation of sulfur and carbon into bacterial biomass – or cleaved by lyases, releasing the climatically-active gas dimethyl sulfide (DMS). It has been demonstrated that thermal stress increases DMSP concentrations in many coral species, however the effect of increased DMSP availability on coral-associated bacteria has not been explored. Here we performed thermal stress experiments to examine how changes in DMSP availability impact bacterial degradation pathways in the mucus of