PBRC Researchers Publish Major Review and Analysis of the Roles of Biofilm Bacteria in the Foundations of Marine Benthic Communities
The differences in the plant and animal communities on coral reefs and mangrove swamps are obvious to anyone who looks at them. And still, marine biologists have long known that the larvae of the animals and the spores of algae in these communities are all mixed together across the seas. So, how does this world mixture of plant and animal propagules get “sorted” and then recruited to the exact places where coral reefs or mangrove swamps thrive?
Over the last 5 -6 decades, it has become well established that the sequence of events in the development of biological communities in the world’s seas, from the highest reaches of the intertidal to the greatest depths, includes (1) adsorption of macromolecules to newly submerged surfaces, (2) the development of a microbial – mainly bacterial – biofilm onto the molecular layer, and (3) the accumulation of protists, animals and plants on the microbial films. This primary discovery led to investigations of the specific roles of bacteria in determining which eukaryotes compose the communities of muddy bays, coral reefs, mangrove swamps, sandy shores and deep sea bottoms. This review thus summarizes the nature of microbe-eukaryote interactions, typically those involving the settlement of larvae of invertebrate animals or spores of algae onto specific geographical substrata. For best-studied “model” organisms, we have information on the specific bacteria and their macromolecules that induce recruitment to very specific habitats. The “data” for the paper can be found in the Supplemental Tables that list the hundreds of species in all major marine animal and plant phyla that are known to settle in response to bacterial films.
Marine Bacterial Biofilms – Shaping Surface Communities. Ann. Rev. MIcro. 2025