Diversity of bacteria associated with the coral Pocillopora damicornis from the Great Barrier Reef

Three colonies of the coral Pocillopora damicornis located at 3-5 m depths were tagged at the weather station on Davies Reef, Great Barrier Reef.The microbial communities of three separate coral colonies were assessed using clone library construction alongside restriction fragment length polymorphism and phylogenetic analysis. Diversity was also investigated spatially across six replicate samples within each single coral colony using 16S rDNA and rpoB-DGGE analysis. To investigate the bacterial community associated with Pocillopora damicornis, a major reef-building coral found throughout the Great Barrier Reef. To make comparisons of the bacterial communities both within a single coral colony and between three separate coral colonies were made using molecular microbial techniques. Comparisons were also performed between two microbial sampling techniques commonly used in coral-microbial studies, the syringe based coral mucus sampling and the airbrushing of the coral to provide a tissue slurry sample. The first analysis and comparison of microbial communities from a coral from the GBR.