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Appl Environ Microbiol, April 1998, p. 1379-1384, Vol. 64, No. 4
0099-2240/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Effect of Temperature on Adhesion of Vibrio Strain AK-1 to Oculina patagonica and on Coral Bleaching

A. Toren,1 L. Landau,1 A. Kushmaro,2 Y. Loya,2 and E. Rosenberg1,*

Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology,1 and Department of Zoology and the Super-Center for Ecological and Environmental Studies,2 George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel

Received 23 July 1997/Accepted 23 January 1998

Laboratory aquarium experiments demonstrated that Vibrio strain AK-1 caused rapid and extensive bleaching of the coral Oculina patagonica at 29°C, slower and less-complete bleaching at 23°C, and no bleaching at 16°C. At 29°C, the application of approximately 100 Vibrio strain AK-1 cells directly onto the coral caused 50 and 83% bleaching after 10 and 20 days, respectively. At 16°C, there was no bleaching, even with an initial inoculum of 1.2 × 108 bacteria. To begin to understand the effect of seawater temperature on bleaching of O. patagonica by Vibrio strain AK-1, adhesion of the bacteria to the coral as a function of temperature was studied. Inoculation of 107 Vibrio strain AK-1 organisms into flasks containing 20 ml of seawater at 25°C and a fragment of O. patagonica resulted in net levels of bacterial adhesion to the coral of 45, 78, and 84% after 2, 6, and 8 h, respectively. The adhesion was inhibited 65% by 0.001% D-galactose and 94% by 0.001% methyl-beta -D-galactopyranoside (beta -M-Gal). After the incubation of Vibrio strain AK-1 with the coral for 6 h, 42% of the input bacteria were released from the coral with 0.01% beta -M-Gal, compared to less than 0.2% when beta -M-Gal was present during the adhesion step. Adhesion did not occur when Vibrio strain AK-1 was grown at 16°C, regardless of whether the corals were maintained at 16 or 25°C, whereas bacteria grown at 25°C adhered to corals maintained at 16 or 25°C. Bacteria grown at 25°C adhered avidly to Sepharose beads containing covalently bound beta -D-galactopyranoside but failed to bind if grown at 16°C. These data suggest that elevated seawater temperatures may cause coral bleaching by allowing for the expression of adhesin genes of Vibrio strain AK-1.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel. Phone: 972-3-6409838. Fax: 972-3-6429377. E-mail: eueqene{at}ccsg.tau.ac.il.




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