The sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in 2021 demonstrated that Earth is warming faster than anticipated. Indeed, in the last decade, there was an increase in the amount and intensity of extreme environmental events. The marine environment suffers the effects of climate change in addition to other anthropogenic threats, such as dredging, eutrophication, and toxic compounds. Furthermore, with the pandemic of COVID-19 we have also seen an unprecedented increase in the single-use of plastic, which without the proper disposal would end up in the oceans. The plastic and microplastic pollutants would add yet another stress to the marine environment. Moreover, in recent years we have observed a rise in antibiotic resistant bacteria in the marine environment due to unsuitable treatment in the sewage system.
Marine sponges (phylum: Porifera) are essential members of the benthic communities, where they play pivotal roles in ecosystem functioning. These animals also harbor complex microbial communities. Surveys have also evaluated how sponge microbiomes respond to numerous stressors, including ocean warming, acidification, eutrophication, and some sources of pollution. For instance, temperatures above 30°C altered the bacteriome associated with sponge species, induced signs of necrose, produced metabolic inactivation, and death. These studies have shown that a small increase, usually 1-2°C in seawater temperature, induces a change in the sponge microbiome followed by a rapid decline in their health. It was also shown that a disturbance of the symbiotic community of larvae of sponge species from exposure to petroleum hydrocarbons occurred and it coincided with the inability of the larvae to settle and metamorphose. Additionally, there have been studies showing that plastic can be found inside the sponge body.
This Research Topic aims to assess how bacterial, archaeal, microeukaryote, and viral diversity and community composition associated with marine sponge will respond to anthropogenic stressors, considering the future scenarios of climate change recently reported by IPCC and pollution, mainly by plastic and microplastic.
This Research Topic welcomes submissions of Original Research Articles, Reviews and Perspective pieces that is related to how microbial community structure associated with marine sponges (bacteria, archaea, microeukaryotes, and virus) will respond to anthropogenic stressors, including climate change and pollution. The submitted studies would try to, based on any one or more of the multi-omics technologies (amplicon/shotgun metagenomics, meta-transcriptomics, metabolomics, meta-proteomics) to evaluate and characterize how anthropogenic stressors may impact microbial assemblages on marine sponge hosts and how these effects might cause diseases and/or death. It will be appreciated for original work that comprise of methodologies which improve the detection of marine pollutants and its roles in the sponge microbiome assembling and functioning. We also encourage the submission of studies linking how the sponge microbiome might adapt to anthropogenic stressors to aid or reverse the negative effects on the sponge host.
It is encouraged that submissions of research articles would include environmental and stressors metadata, which would make it possible to integrate the metadata and omics data to characterize relations among stressors exposure, microbial shifts and host health.
The sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in 2021 demonstrated that Earth is warming faster than anticipated. Indeed, in the last decade, there was an increase in the amount and intensity of extreme environmental events. The marine environment suffers the effects of climate change in addition to other anthropogenic threats, such as dredging, eutrophication, and toxic compounds. Furthermore, with the pandemic of COVID-19 we have also seen an unprecedented increase in the single-use of plastic, which without the proper disposal would end up in the oceans. The plastic and microplastic pollutants would add yet another stress to the marine environment. Moreover, in recent years we have observed a rise in antibiotic resistant bacteria in the marine environment due to unsuitable treatment in the sewage system.
Marine sponges (phylum: Porifera) are essential members of the benthic communities, where they play pivotal roles in ecosystem functioning. These animals also harbor complex microbial communities. Surveys have also evaluated how sponge microbiomes respond to numerous stressors, including ocean warming, acidification, eutrophication, and some sources of pollution. For instance, temperatures above 30°C altered the bacteriome associated with sponge species, induced signs of necrose, produced metabolic inactivation, and death. These studies have shown that a small increase, usually 1-2°C in seawater temperature, induces a change in the sponge microbiome followed by a rapid decline in their health. It was also shown that a disturbance of the symbiotic community of larvae of sponge species from exposure to petroleum hydrocarbons occurred and it coincided with the inability of the larvae to settle and metamorphose. Additionally, there have been studies showing that plastic can be found inside the sponge body.
This Research Topic aims to assess how bacterial, archaeal, microeukaryote, and viral diversity and community composition associated with marine sponge will respond to anthropogenic stressors, considering the future scenarios of climate change recently reported by IPCC and pollution, mainly by plastic and microplastic.
This Research Topic welcomes submissions of Original Research Articles, Reviews and Perspective pieces that is related to how microbial community structure associated with marine sponges (bacteria, archaea, microeukaryotes, and virus) will respond to anthropogenic stressors, including climate change and pollution. The submitted studies would try to, based on any one or more of the multi-omics technologies (amplicon/shotgun metagenomics, meta-transcriptomics, metabolomics, meta-proteomics) to evaluate and characterize how anthropogenic stressors may impact microbial assemblages on marine sponge hosts and how these effects might cause diseases and/or death. It will be appreciated for original work that comprise of methodologies which improve the detection of marine pollutants and its roles in the sponge microbiome assembling and functioning. We also encourage the submission of studies linking how the sponge microbiome might adapt to anthropogenic stressors to aid or reverse the negative effects on the sponge host.
It is encouraged that submissions of research articles would include environmental and stressors metadata, which would make it possible to integrate the metadata and omics data to characterize relations among stressors exposure, microbial shifts and host health.