Bacterial communities and relative abundances of the pathogen Vibrio coralliilyticus in feces of coral reef fish collected on the north shore of Mo’orea, French Polynesia, Oct 2020

Understanding how microbial communities in consumer feces may impact ecosystem health may improve conservation and restoration efforts. To test how microbial communities in fish feces may affect coral reef health, we collected fecal samples from ten fish species, ranging from obligate corallivore to grazer/detritivore. Additionally, samples of corals, algae, sediments, and seawater were collected to test whether bacterial taxa in these samples were also represented in fish feces (N = 5-14 per fish, coral, or algae species/genus). All collections were conducted in October 2020 from the back reef (1-2 m depth) and fore reef (5-10 m depth) in Moorea, between LTER sites 1 and 2 of the Moorea Coral Reef (MCR) Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site. We conducted bacterial 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding on all samples and found that fecal communities of bacteria differed among fish guilds (obligate corallivores, facultative corallivores, grazer/detritivores). We also used real-time PCR to quantify abundances of Vibrio coralliilyticus, a known coral pathogen, in all fecal samples. Samples were collected and processed, and data were analyzed, by the authors of Grupstra et al., 2023.