Abstract The bacterial genus Endozoicomonas is prevalent and abundant in the microbiome of many corals, but the combination of environmental and host factors shaping its distribution remains uncertain

The gap

Consensus across the literature

Supporting evidence — 3 representative gaps

• Host Identity Shapes Taxonomic Composition and Predicted Functional Potential of Coral-Associated Bacteriomes in the Gulf of California (2026) · doi

  Coral-associated microbial communities play a critical role in the health and resilience of reef ecosystems; however, the relative importance of host identity and environmental factors in shaping these communities remains unclear, particularly in understudied regions such as the Gulf of California.

  Keywords: communities coral associated microbial play critical role health resilience reef ecosystems relative importance host identity
• Insights into the role of crustose coralline algae microbiomes on coral larval settlement in the Great Barrier Reef (2026) · 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.

  Keywords: settlement coral microbial larval taxa supplementary microbiome material associated identified different species inducers inhibitors future
• Host identity shapes Endozoicomonas composition in coral microbiomes across depths and marine protected areas at Little Cayman Island (2026) · doi

  Abstract The bacterial genus Endozoicomonas is prevalent and abundant in the microbiome of many corals, but the combination of environmental and host factors shaping its distribution remains uncertain.

  Keywords: abstract bacterial genus endozoicomonas prevalent abundant microbiome corals combination environmental host factors shaping distribution remains