Microbial communities play essential roles in marine

The gap

Evidence profile

Sourced from the abstract and future work of the source papers, classified as general, spanning 3 journals.

Supporting evidence — 3 representative gaps

• Heterotrophic feeding and symbiotic state shape the chemical microenvironment, microbiome composition, and activity in the coral gastrovascular cavity (2026) · Applied and Environmental Microbiology · doi

  However, most studies in the literature have focused on studying coral-microbe interactions at larger spatial scales, and especially the gastrovascular cavity (GVC) of corals remains underexplored despite its key role in coral processes, such as prey digestion, circulation of resources between polyps, sexual reproduction, and as the pathway for algal symbiont expulsion and colonization.

  generalabstract
  Keywords: coral literature focused studying microbe interactions larger spatial scales especially gastrovascular cavity corals remains underexplored
• Insights into the role of crustose coralline algae microbiomes on coral larval settlement in the Great Barrier Reef (2026) · Environmental Microbiome · doi

  Specific microorganisms associated with high or low larval settlement were identified for 14 different GBR coral species. These candidate inducers and inhibitors belonged to a diverse range of microbial taxa and repre- sent important targets for future research to distinguish the role of the algal host versus microbiome. Nonethe- less, further experimental validation will be needed to confirm the causality between these identified micro- organisms and settlement success. These taxa can be tested in validation experiments using isolated mono- or mixed-species biofilms or through manipulation of CCA microbiomes by enriching potential inducers or lowering inhibitor abundance. Building on these findings, we also suggest that future research focus on the functional char- acterisation of the CCA microbiome and the interactions with the CCA tissue-associated metabolomes to better interrogate whether common functions or biochemical pathways, rather than taxa, are the source of microbial settlement cues. While coral larvae are responding to different combinations of microbial taxa, these may rep- resent complementary functional pathways that trigger larval settlement. The identification of microbial induc- ers and inhibitors for larval settlement is critically impor- tant for our understanding of coral settlement behaviour, which would in turn inform recruitment and coral popu- lations dynamics as microbial communities shifts under anthropogenic stressors such as human-induced climate change [7, 108]. Furthermore, this study significantly adds to our knowledge and capability to guide the devel- opment of attractive substrates for coral larval settlement to optimise large-scale reef restoration. Turnlund et al. Environmental Microbiome (2026) 21:63 Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 1 8 6 / s 4 0 7 9 3 - 0 2 6 - 0 0 9 0 7 - 6 . Supplementary Material 1. Supplementary Material 2.

  generalfuture workevidence 5/5
  Keywords: settlement coral microbial larval taxa supplementary microbiome material associated identified different species inducers inhibitors future
• Divergent assembly patterns of core and non-core microbial taxa under low environmental heterogeneity in the surface waters of the Xisha Islands (2026) · Microbiology Spectrum · doi

  ABSTRACT Microbial communities play essential roles in marine biogeochemical cycling, yet the respective roles of environmental and spatial drivers of community assembly remain incompletely understood, particularly under low environmental heterogeneity and across distinct microbial subcommunities.

  generalabstractevidence 5/5
  Keywords: microbial roles environmental abstract communities play essential marine biogeochemical cycling respective spatial drivers community assembly

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