Abstract
Ulva is a ubiquitous macroalgal genus of commercial interest. Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) systems promise large-scale production of macroalgae due to their high productivity and environmental sustainability. Complex host–microbiome interactions play a decisive role in macroalgal development, especially in Ulva spp. due to algal growth- and morphogenesis-promoting factors released by associated bacteria. However, our current understanding of the microbial community assembly and structure in cultivated macroalgae is scant. We aimed to determine (i) to what extent IMTA settings influence the microbiome associated with U. rigida and its rearing water, (ii) to explore the dynamics of beneficial microbes to algal growth and development under IMTA settings, and (iii) to improve current knowledge of host–microbiome interactions. We examined the diversity and taxonomic composition of the prokaryotic communities associated with wild versus IMTA-grown Ulva rigida and surrounding seawater by using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. With 3141 Amplicon Sequence Variants (ASVs), the prokaryotic richness was, overall, higher in water than in association with U. rigida. Bacterial ASVs were more abundant in aquaculture water samples than water collected from the lagoon. The beta diversity analysis revealed distinct prokaryotic communities associated with Ulva collected in both aquacultures and coastal waters. Aquaculture samples (water and algae) shared 22% of ASVs, whereas natural, coastal lagoon samples only 9%. While cultivated Ulva selected 239 (8%) host-specific ASVs, wild specimens possessed more than twice host-specific ASVs (17%). Cultivated U. rigida specimens enriched the phyla Cyanobacteria, Planctomycetes, Verrucomicrobia, and Proteobacteria. Within the Gammaproteobacteria, while Glaciecola mostly dominated the microbiome in cultivated algae, the genus Granulosicoccus characterized both Ulva microbiomes. In both wild and IMTA settings, the phylum Bacteroidetes was more abundant in the bacterioplankton than in direct association with U. rigida. However, we observed that the Saprospiraceae family within this phylum was barely present in lagoon water but very abundant in aquaculture water. Aquaculture promoted the presence of known morphogenesis-inducing bacteria in water samples. Our study suggests that IMTA significantly shaped the structure and composition of the microbial community of the rearing water and cultivated U. rigida. Detailed analysis revealed the presence of previously undetected taxa associated with Ulva, possessing potentially unknown functional traits.
Introduction
Green, brown, and red seaweeds are currently receiving increasing research attention about the development of a more sustainable (blue) economy (; ). Their exploitation as sources of novel biomolecules () and materials is an active and multidisciplinary field of research, which is currently gaining momentum. With its broad environmental plasticity, high growth rate, and multipurpose biomass usage, green macroalgae provide novel and reusable sources of compounds and materials of potential applicability in several sectors (). In particular, members of the widespread genus Ulva are already playing an essential role in the food (; ; Santos et al., 2015), pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries () as well as in fish aquaculture (Neori et al., 2004; Naidoo et al., 2006; Shpigel et al., 2017) to and for the generation of biofuels (; ).
Integrated multi-trophic aquacultures (IMTA) are characterized by an increase in the diversity of the selected breeding species compared to traditional monocultures (), where organisms occupying different trophic levels use the same limited physical space or occupy neighboring areas. They share water bodies (and with them nutrients) via water movements (open ocean) or artificial current systems (inland basins or ponds). In this way, the by-products (organic and inorganic nutrients) of one or more organisms become resources for a lower cultivated trophic level (). Non-multitrophic systems, otherwise, would rely on costly biofiltration apparatuses to control water quality and avoid the release of nutrient-rich waters directly into the natural environment, which would likely affect ecosystem functioning negatively (Mineur et al., 2015), for example, by favoring the increment of opportunistic species eventually promoting algal blooms (Smetacek and Zingone, 2013). Additionally, a more energy-balanced ecosystem has the advantage of preventing or combating disease outbreaks, as seen in the open ocean IMTA of Atlantic salmon, blue mussels (Mytilus edulis), and kelp forest (Skår and Mortensen, 2007; Molloy et al., 2011). Benefits were also highlighted in land-based IMTAs, such as high productivity and reduced variability of the protein content of macroalgae, which were related to the constant supply of nutrients between the different compartments in culture and reduced grazing of the algae (Schuenhoff et al., 2003; Mata et al., 2010). Taken together, this and the cultivation of more high-value species within the system are often thought to promote economic sustainability and societal acceptability of IMTA initiatives (). Although IMTA is widely applied, it is still unclear whether the implementation of IMTA substantially affects the structure of microbial communities associated with economically valuable species.
As already seen in humans, apes, and invertebrates (Moeller et al., 2013; Mikaelyan et al., 2015), in macroalgae (), host-associated microbiomes differ according to a wide range of factors. Microbiome profiles were different along geographical and temporal gradients (; ; Michelou et al., 2013; ), as well as along a variation of abiotic factors such as temperature and nutrients () (). In some cases, there were pieces of evidence of species-specific microbial community structures among macroalgae (Lachnit et al., 2009) but in other cases, individuals belonging to the same species (U. australis) showed severe differences in the microbial profiles (), which was used to suggest the “competitive lottery model” to explain the process of bacterial community assembly on macroalgal surfaces (; ). There were further indications that microbial community structure and composition can be driven by changes in the physiological and morphological traits showed during the life cycle phases of the host, as seen in the case of brown and red algal species, such as Laminaria hyperborea and Mastocarpus spp. (; Lemay et al., 2018). Another important structuring factor is the physiological condition of the host (such as healthy or stressed), as it can influence microbial community assembly processes to a larger extent than the environmental variables do, described for the brown alga Ecklonia radiata (Marzinelli et al., 2015, 2018). Altogether, the evidence gained from recent studies suggests that the host selects a microbial community that is different in structure and composition from the surrounding environment such as water and substrate (; ; Michelou et al., 2013). Model studies have further suggested that Ulva is gardening its microbial community through released chemoattractants and carbon sources (). Despite the wide interest into the macroalgal holobiont from both an ecological and biotechnological standpoint, many functional and molecular relationships between bacteria and their hosts remain to be unraveled (Wichard and Beemelmanns, 2018).
Species belonging to the Ulva genus have extraordinary phenotypic plasticity (; Wichard, 2015). Even environmental factors might induce differences in their morphology, making the establishment of robust morphology-based and numerical taxonomy procedures complicated (Malta et al., 1999; Woolcott and King, 1999; ; Messyasz and Rybak, 2010). Molecular tools are thus necessary to solve taxonomic and cladistic hurdles such as the unification of the Ulva and Enteromorpha clades or, at the species level, Ulva compressa with Ulva mutabilis (; Steinhagen et al., 2019a, b). Although Ulva can be cultivated under standardized, small-scale laboratory conditions in the presence of a designed microbiome with just two essential bacterial strains (Wichard, 2015), macroalgae show variations in its associated natural microbiome along the different developmental stages of their complex life cycles (Lemay et al., 2018).
As Ulva–microbiome interactions can play an essential role in sustainable aquaculture conditions (), we have hypothesized that an IMTA system can affect bacterial communities and their interactions with the host. Insights into microbial dynamics will allow us optimizing algal aquaculture efficiency and its impact on the environment. We aimed to decipher the microbiomes associated with Ulva rigida in cultivated (reared) versus natural conditions to determine how the microbiome was shaped by the surrounding environment and by Ulva.
Materials and Methods
Algal Aquaculture
The land-based cultivation of the algae analyzed in this study was performed at ALGAplus Lda, located at the Aveiro coastal lagoon (Portugal). IMTA-based algal production at ALGAplus relies on a unique flow system in which fish and macroalgae are integrated (Figure 1). Fish farming (seabream and seabass) works in a semi-intensive regime, at a low production density (1–2 kg m–3) and with artificial feeding accounting only for 10–20% of the fish diet (natural food, as crabs, shrimps, and algae accounts for the rest). Fish feeding happens twice a day, typically, early in the morning and late in the afternoon. The water flow is unidirectional, entering the production system at each high tide and flowing back to the lagoon (Boco River) at low tides. The fish production units consist of an entrance water pond that feeds several fish ponds (4000–5000 m2) individually controlled by gates; the fish effluents flow out to sedimentation ponds and then back to the lagoon. The macroalgae tanks (max. 20,000 L per tank) were set to receive water that is pumped from two fish ponds mechanically filtered to remove particulate matter (>40 μm) and then continuously distributed across several macroalgae tanks in an open-flow regime. Each tank was individually controlled regarding water exchange rates. The outflow from all macroalgae tanks was discharged to the sedimentation pond and back to the lagoon. A previous snapshot study has determined several abiotic factors on the site. At various sampling points of the IMTA, the levels of , , , and metals, which can act as micronutrients or have a toxic effect, depending on their concentration, were determined (). Essential nutrients such as and were not depleted, although was significantly reduced in macroalgae tanks.
FIGURE 1
Sampling and DNA Extraction
For this study, 25 samples were collected, encompassing algal tissue and water samples from both the IMTA system and the Aveiro coastal lagoon (surrounding environment). Analyses of the lagoon samples were included to enable assessment of how the IMTA microbiome differs from the wild microbiome and determine the extent to which aquaculture and coastal lagoon water serve as the source of bacteria for seaweed-associated microbial communities in both settings. From the aquaculture system, algal (five biological replicates) and water (five biological replicates) samples were collected randomly from different tanks (independent samples) (Figure 1). Five water and 10 algal lagoon samples were further collected randomly from salt-marsh ponds and mainstream, along 1 km of the Boco River, which is the water source for the IMTA system. Two liters of water were collected into a 3 L sterile plastic bag (Ziploc®, SC Johnson, Germany) and transported in an insulated box to the laboratory. Under aseptic conditions, each seawater sample was passed through sterile 0.22 μm (pore size) mixed cellulose ester membrane filters (ME 24/21 ST, WhatmanTM/GE Healthcare, United States) using a vacuum pump. The filters were subsequently cut into small pieces and stored at −80°C until DNA extraction. Algae were also placed in Ziploc® bags containing surrounding water and transported as above to the laboratory. The algal tissue was then systematically checked for sessile organisms, which, if present, were carefully removed with a sterile scraper. The cleaned algal tissue was then rinsed three times in autoclaved artificial seawater (ASW: 23.38 g L–1 NaCl, 2.41 g L–1 MgSO4⋅7H2O, 1.90 g L–1 MgCl2⋅6H2O, 1.11 g L–1 CaCl2⋅2H2O, 0.75 g L–1 KCl, and 0.17 g L–1 NaHCO3) to remove unattached surface bacteria. Equivalent biomass of 200 mg of algal tissue was cut down into small pieces, rapidly frozen with liquid nitrogen and stored at −80°C until DNA extraction. The microbial metagenomic DNA was extracted using the DNeasy® Power Soil® Kit (QIAGEN®, Germany) according to the manufacturer’s protocol.
Furthermore, from each algal sample, extra tissue was collected for DNA extraction followed by molecular host species identification. Algal DNA was isolated with the GenEluteTM Plant Genomic DNA kit (Sigma–Aldrich, Germany) after a grinding step: 100 mg of algal tissue was frozen and ground using steel beads in a TissueLyser II apparatus (QIAGEN®, Germany) at maximum speed for 30″ twice, with each grinding step intercalated by a freezing step of 1 min in liquid nitrogen. The DNA quality was assessed with gel electrophoresis using 0.8% agarose gel, and DNA concentrations were quantified using a Qubit® 3.0 Fluorometer (Life Technologies, United States).
Algal Genotyping and Phylogenetic Analysis
Two short genetic markers that could discriminate between different species allowed to identify the algae via DNA barcoding. The first was the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer DNA (ITS rn DNA) (White et al., 1990), and the second was the chloroplast-encoded RuBisCo gene (rbcL). The nuclear primers used were ITS1 5′-TCCGTAGGTGAACCTGCGG-3′ and ITS4 5′-TCCTCCGCTTATTGATATGC-3′. This fragment contained, in the 5′ → 3′ direction, the ITS1 locus (internal transcribed spacer 1), the 5.8S rRNA gene (which is a non-coding RNA region of the large subunit of the eukaryotic ribosome), and the ITS2 locus (internal transcribed spacer 2) (White et al., 1990). The primers used to partially amplify the partial RuBisCo gene were SH F1 5′-CCGTTTAACTTATTACACGCC-3′ (forward) and SH R4 5′-TTACATCACCACCTTCAGATGC-3′ (reverse) (
FIGURE 2

Maximum-likelihood phylogenetic trees of ITS (A) and rbcL (B) DNA fragments. The trees are drawn to each independent scale, with branch lengths measured in the number of substitutions per site; the numbers at nodes refer to bootstrap values (1000 replication). For the ITS fragments tree (A) the analysis involved 34 sequences and 283 nucleotides positions. For the rbcL fragments tree (B) the analysis involved 35 sequences and 478 nucleotide positions. UL, Ulva specimens analyzed in this study from coastal lagoon; UA, Ulva specimens analyzed in this study from aquaculture tanks. Type strain “Ulva mutabilis (Føyn)” is still available in culture. Strains in bold were selected for microbiome analysis. The original names in the database were retained.
Microbiome Analysis
Metagenomic DNA samples with high quality and sufficient concentration were used to generate 16S rRNA gene amplicons by next-generation sequencing. For algal samples, only those identified as U. rigida by DNA barcoding were selected. As a result, four replicates from Ulva specimens reared in aquaculture, four from aquaculture water, four from lagoon water, and five replicates from wild Ulva specimens were used for microbiome taxonomic profiling, summing up 17 samples in total. For the microbiome analyses, the V4 hypervariable region (515–806) of the 16S rRNA gene was amplified at MR DNA1 (Shallowater, TX, United States) using the primers 515F (5′-GTG CCA GCM GCC GCG GTA A-3′) (
The microbiome data analyses were performed almost entirely using QIIME 2 (Quantitative Insights into Microbial Ecology) (
TABLE 1
| Samples | CP | % | MT | % | UR | % | Bacteria and Archaea | % | Reads frequency after cleaning |
| UA | 8033 | 6.36 | 57 | 0.05 | 11 | 0.01 | 118145 | 93.58 | 118145 |
| 12096 | 9.63 | 198 | 0.16 | 5 | 0 | 113334 | 90.21 | 113334 | |
| 18183 | 14.82 | 26 | 0.02 | 0 | 0 | 104508 | 85.16 | 104508 | |
| 18917 | 16.43 | 120 | 0.1 | 3 | 0 | 96088 | 83.46 | 96088 | |
| 34917 | 28.76 | 1996 | 1.64 | 34 | 0.03 | 84459 | 69.57 | 84459 | |
| UL | 72610 | 50.71 | 107 | 0.07 | 3 | 0 | 70453 | 49.21 | 70453 |
| 47126 | 27.73 | 328 | 0.19 | 56 | 0.03 | 122442 | 72.05 | 122442 | |
| 38066 | 28.62 | 2422 | 1.82 | 32 | 0.02 | 92491 | 69.54 | 92491 | |
| 93802 | 66.67 | 63 | 0.04 | 0 | 0 | 46823 | 33.28 | 46803 | |
| WA | 7921 | 5.27 | 108 | 0.07 | 58 | 0.04 | 142178 | 94.62 | 142178 |
| 10183 | 7.08 | 232 | 0.16 | 33 | 0.02 | 133398 | 92.74 | 133398 | |
| 31588 | 21.84 | 805 | 0.56 | 52 | 0.04 | 112194 | 77.57 | 112194 | |
| 8856 | 7.65 | 310 | 0.27 | 79 | 0.07 | 106445 | 92.01 | 106445 | |
| WL | 7977 | 6.41 | 870 | 0.7 | 22 | 0.02 | 115502 | 92.87 | 115502 |
| 8598 | 6.47 | 847 | 0.64 | 7 | 0.01 | 123493 | 92.89 | 123493 | |
| 6841 | 6.78 | 694 | 0.69 | 4 | 0 | 93289 | 92.52 | 93289 | |
| 30898 | 22.99 | 908 | 0.68 | 51 | 0.04 | 102521 | 76.29 | 102521 |
Overview of contaminations in the reads after taxonomic assignment.
The reads frequency was obtained after removal of the contaminants: chloroplasts (CP), mitochondria (MT) and unassigned reads (UR). UA, Ulva collected from aquaculture; UL, Ulva collected from lagoon; WA, rearing water from aquaculture; WL, water from the lagoon. Numbers represent counts and percentages of total reads.
Microbiome Statistical Analyses
To determine whether the microbial community structure and composition shift across the microhabitats inspected, in this study, we performed the following analyses: (1) Estimation of bacterial species richness (CHAO1) and diversity (Shannon index) based on a rarefied (46803 reads) dataset: microhabitats have been tested for differences in estimated richness with the Kruskal–Wallis significance test for all pairwise combinations. (2) Beta diversity assessment performed with Bray–Curtis metrics and Unweighted and Weighted Unifrac (Lozupone and Knight, 2005; Lozupone et al., 2011): the resulting distance/dissimilarity matrices were then subjected to ordination using principal coordinate analyses (PCoA). The results were cross-validated with Permanova (999 random permutations) (
Results
Ulva Species Identification
The genus Ulva shows high morphological plasticity. Therefore, visual field identification is not sufficient to discriminate between species. Indeed, from the same morphology (lettuce-like flattened blades were identified during the collection), two monophyletic assemblages were obtained from the phylogenetic analysis (Figure 2), one associated with U. rigida reference sequences (ITS-AY422522.1, rbcL-AY422564.1) and the other with U. compressa (ITS-AF035350.1, rbc-L-AY255859.1). Gene phylogenies (ITS and rbcL) were congruent, resulting in similar tree typologies and corresponding phylogenetic clades. Only macroalgal samples that affiliated with the U. rigida phylogenetic clade (Figure 2) were considered for further microbiome analysis: five aquaculture samples (UA: UlvaAquaculture) and four lagoon samples (UL: UlvaLagoon).
Diversity of the Microbial Community
Alpha Diversity
Diversity indices were calculated for each sample, and the median values of the four microhabitats were plotted (Figure 3). CHAO1 richness estimates were highest in rearing water samples (833.5 ± 117.4) and significantly differed (q-value ≤ 0.05) from the estimates obtained for the lagoon water and, as expected, from the algal surface in both wild and aquaculture conditions (Figure 3A). In both alpha diversity tests (CHAO1 estimation and Shannon index), wild Ulva specimens (UL) showed the lowest value, but at the same time, also the largest variability (broadest standard deviation) within biological replicates. Unexpectedly, aquaculture samples (both water and Ulva tissue) displayed higher diversity and richness than the corresponding samples from the lagoon.
FIGURE 3

CHAO1 richness estimates (A) and Shannon diversity index (B) obtained for Ulva-associated and surrounding water microbiomes based on 16S rRNA gene. Estimates obtained for Ulva-associated (UL, Ulva from lagoon; UA, Ulva from aquaculture) and water samples (WL, water from lagoon; WA, water from aquaculture) prokaryotic communities are shown with corresponding standard deviation (error bars). Significant differences (p-value ≤ 0.05) between microhabitats are highlighted by different letters on top of the bars.
Similarly, water samples (both from aquaculture and lagoon) always displayed higher values of both alpha diversity tests than corresponding Ulva samples, although the difference was less pronounced. Differences in p-values were confirmed by the corrected q-values (Table 2). The Shannon diversity index considered both the species richness (e.g., number of ASVs) and the evenness (how evenly the sequences are distributed between species) of any given sample, being communities with higher dominance of few species less diverse than communities with higher evenness for any pair of communities sharing the same richness. In this study, Shannon diversity indices displayed similar patterns as those described above for the CHAO1 richness estimate, although the observed difference across the microhabitats was found not to be significant after Kruskal–Wallis tests were performed (Figure 3B and Table 2).
TABLE 2
| Group 1 | Group 2 | CHAO1 p-value (q-value) | Shannon p-value (q-value) |
| UA (n = 5) | UL (n = 4) | 0.62 (0.62) | 0.22 (0.37) |
| UA (n = 5) | WA (n = 4) | 0.01 (0.05) | 0.33 (0.39) |
| UA (n = 5) | WL (n = 4) | 0.02 (0.05) | 0.81 (0.81) |
| UL (n = 4) | WA (n = 4) | 0.08 (0.12) | 0.15 (0.37) |
| UL (n = 4) | WL (n = 4) | 0.24 (0.30) | 0.25 (0.37) |
| WA (n = 4) | WL (n = 4) | 0.02 (0.05) | 0.08 (0.37) |
Kruskal–Wallis pairwise tests on alpha-diversity indexes obtained for all combinations of samples.
Significance was set at q-value ≤ 0.05 (values in bold). UA, Ulva collected from aquaculture; UL, Ulva collected from lagoon; WA, rearing water from aquaculture.
Beta Diversity
With the ordination of the Bray–Curtis dissimilarity matrix, the two main axes (51 and 18%, the first and second axis, respectively) described 68% of the total variability in the dataset. The clustering into the four groups corresponded to the origin (i.e., microhabitats) of the sampling (Figure 4) supported by the statistical test (Permanova test: q-value ≤ 0.05) (Table 3). Unweighted UniFrac measured the phylogenetic distance between sets of taxa in a phylogenetic tree as the fraction of the branch length of the tree. The clustering was consistent with the Bray–Curtis matrix (Permanova test: p-value ≤ 0.05) (Table 3). Along the most explanatory axis, water lagoon samples were separated from the rest of the samples. Since this analysis solely considers the presence/absence of the ASVs, the differences between groups are mostly given by the number of low abundance ASVs (1% of abundance – in this case, reached 98% of the total ASVs classified at species level) that are present in the samples. Using the weighted UniFrac metric, algal and water samples were separated into two groups along this axis (Permanova test, q-value ≤ 0.05) (Table 3). Although cultivated and lagoon Ulva samples, on one side of the principal coordinate, and aquaculture and lagoon water samples, on the other side, were close together, all performed comparisons were statistically different (Permanova test, q-value ≤ 0.05) (Table 3). The variations among the most abundant ASVs could discriminate between microhabitats. Altogether, these results motivated further exploration of the differences in taxonomic composition between aquaculture and lagoon samples.
FIGURE 4

Beta diversity analysis in ordination plot (PCoA) of the Bray–Curtis dissimilarity matrix, of bacterial communities associated with Ulva [UA, Ulva from aquaculture (dark green circles); UL, Ulva from lagoon (light green diamonds)] and in seawater [WA, water from aquaculture (dark blue circles); WL, water from lagoon (light blue diamonds).
TABLE 3
| Group 1 | Group 2 | Unweighted Unifrac p-value (q-value) | Weighted Unifrac p-value (q-value) | Bray–Curtis p-value (q-value) |
| UA (n = 5) | UL (n = 4) | 0.009 (0.022) | 0.048 (0.048) | 0.006 (0.014) |
| UA (n = 5) | WA (n = 4) | 0.009 (0.022) | 0.009 (0.030) | 0.007 (0.014) |
| UA (n = 5) | WL (n = 4) | 0.011 (0.022) | 0.010 (0.030) | 0.005 (0.014) |
| UL (n = 4) | WA (n = 4) | 0.033 (0.033) | 0.038 (0.046) | 0.035 (0.042) |
| UL (n = 4) | WL (n = 4) | 0.025 (0.030) | 0.025 (0.046) | 0.042 (0.042) |
| WA (n = 4) | WL (n = 4) | 0.023 (0.030) | 0.035 (0.046) | 0.030 (0.042) |
Multiple pairwise Permanova (999 permutations) tests on beta-diversity indices obtained for all combinations of samples.
Significance was set at q-value ≤ 0.05. UA, Ulva collected from aquaculture; UL, Ulva collected from lagoon; WA, rearing water from aquaculture.
Taxonomy
The dataset, with 28 bacterial phyla, consisted of four phyla accounting for >95% of the total ASVs abundance in the following order: Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, and Planctomycetes. Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes were showing two opposite trends in the comparison between water and algal samples: Proteobacteria were more abundant in algae (85%, mean value) than in water (63%) while Bacteroidetes were prominent in water samples (52%) rather than in algal samples (10.8%). In the comparison between aquaculture and lagoon, Proteobacteria abundance varied between 54% (mean value) for aquaculture water and 72% for lagoon water. It was also valid for the algal tissue to a lesser extent (86% for UA and 83% for UL), but still significant (Figure 5A and Table 4).
FIGURE 5

Taxonomic composition of prokaryotic communities associated with Ulva (UA, Ulva from aquaculture; UL, Ulva from lagoon) and in seawater (WA, water from aquaculture; WL, water from lagoon) at (A) class and (B) genus levels.
TABLE 4
| Taxon | UA mean value | UL mean value |
| ASV level | ||
| A2541/Uncl. Psychrosphaera (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 0 | 191 |
| A1921/Tateyamaria (α-Proteobacteria) | 295 | 0 |
| A1819/Uncl. Rhodobacteraceae (α-Proteobacteria) | 220 | 0 |
| Family level | ||
| Psychromonadaceae (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 48 | 0 |
| Order level | ||
| Nitrosopumilales (Thaumarchaeota) | 0 | 2 |
| Fusobacteriales (Fusobacteria) | 0 | 9 |
| Candidatus Kaiserbacteria (Patescibacteri) | 39 | 12 |
| Uncl. OM190 (Planctomycetes) | 23 | 4 |
| Pirellulales (Planctomycetes) | 1774 | 346 |
| Planctomycetales (Planctomycetes) | 49 | 16 |
| Kordiimonadales (α-Proteobacteria) | 25 | 2 |
| Rhodospirillales (α-Proteobacteria) | 7 | 14 |
| Bradymonadales (δ-Proteobacteria) | 35 | 56 |
| Betaproteobacteriales (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 87 | 247 |
| Ectothiorhodospirales (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 3 | 66 |
| Ga0077536 (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 11 | 3 |
| KI89A clade (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 215 | 24 |
| Oceanospirillales (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 48 | 147 |
| UBA10353 marine group (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 0 | 2 |
| Spirochaetales (Spirochaetia) | 0 | 6 |
| Class level | ||
| Parcubacteria (Patescibacteria) | 42 | 17 |
| Phylum level | ||
| Fusobacteria | 0 | 9.5 |
| Planctomycetes | 2163 | 428 |
| Thaumarchaeota | 0 | 2 |
| Cyanobacteria | 93 | 29 |
| Uncl. Bacteria | 28 | 163 |
| Verrucomicrobia | 32 | 37 |
| Spirochaetes | 0 | 6 |
| Proteobacteria | 89,312 | 69,230 |
ANCOM analysis of the comparison within Ulva’s microenvironments (UA, Ulva collected from aquaculture, versus UL, Ulva collected from the lagoon).
List of significantly different taxa at all taxonomic levels, with respective absolute abundances. The mean value is given by five replicates for UA and four for UL.
Also, the ANCOM testing revealed that Planctomycetes, Cyanobacteria, and Verrucomicrobia were significantly more abundant in reared than wild Ulva specimens. The classes Alpha- and Gamma-proteobacteria dominated the dataset with different preferences (Tables 4, 5). While Alphaproteobacteria showed higher abundances in lagoon water than in the other three microhabitats, Gammaproteobacteria appeared with higher abundance in Ulva-associated communities than in the respective water samples. Bacteroidetes (with Bacteroidia being the most abundant class) were more commonly present in aquaculture (41%) than in lagoon waters (22%), where the variation across replicates was remarkably low. In reared Ulva, <10% of the obtained reads were classified as Bacteroidia, while in lagoon Ulva, due to the high variability across replicates, one sample reached 30% abundance. The class Actinobacteria was more abundant in water (3%) than in Ulva samples (0.01%) (for both environments), but as an exception from the rule, Acidimicrobiia (belonging to Actinobacteria phylum) was more abundant in Ulva than in water samples. The class Planctomycetacia was found in all microhabitats but with a higher presence in association with cultivated Ulva (2%) than in all other tested microhabitats, where its relative abundance did not overcome 0.4%. The classes Deltaproteobacteria and Verrucomicrobiae showed higher prevalence in aquaculture water samples (0.36%) than in other samples where they reached similar abundances.
TABLE 5
| Taxon | WA mean value | WL mean value |
| ASV level | ||
| A2581/Uncl. Burkholderiaceae (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 0 | 209 |
| A2585/Uncl. Burkholderiaceae (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 0 | 156 |
| Species level | ||
| Uncl. Burkholderiaceae (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 0 | 519 |
| Uncl. Porticoccus (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 0 | 219 |
| Genus level | ||
| Uncl. Burkholderiaceae (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 0 | 519 |
| Family level | ||
| Sporichthyaceae (Actinobacteria) | 0 | 82 |
| Legionellaceae (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 150 | 0.7 |
| Order level | ||
| Frankiales (Actinobacteria) | 0 | 82 |
| Marine Group II (Thermoplasmata) | 1 | 392 |
| Legionellales (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 150 | 728 |
| Aeromonadales (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 0 | 0.5 |
| Syntrophobacterales (Ɣ-Proteobacteria) | 0 | 23 |
| Chitinophagales (Bacteroidetes) | 29,757 | 233 |
| Class level | ||
| Thermoplasmata (Euryarchaeota) | 1 | 392 |
| Campylobacteria (Epsilonbacteraeota) | 88 | 729 |
| OM190 (Planctomycetes) | 68 | 0.5 |
| Parcubacteria (Patescibacteria) | 108 | 18 |
| Phylum level | ||
| Euryarchaeota | 1 | 392 |
ANCOM analysis of the comparison within water’s microenvironments (WA, water collected from aquaculture, versus WL, water collected from the lagoon).
List of significantly different taxa at all taxonomic levels, with respective absolute abundance averages. The mean value is given by four replicates.
Representatives of the domain Archaea were predominantly found in lagoon water with about 0.1% of the total ASVs abundance, including the phyla Euryarchaeota (395 reads), Nanoarchaeota (9 reads), and Thaumarchaeota (41 reads), but only Euryarchaeota appeared to be significantly enriched in lagoon water (Table 5).
Concerning the most abundant genera found throughout the dataset, lagoon water samples contained a larger number of taxa sharing similar abundances than in other microhabitats, such as the genera Planktomarina, Lentibacter, uncl. Cryomorphaceae, uncl. Burkholderiaceae, uncl. Flavobacteriaceae (from 4 to 16% of abundance). In cultivated Ulva specimens, Glaciecola (31.1 ± 5.7%), Granulosicoccus (16.4 ± 4.4%), and uncl. Rhodobacteraceae (9.70 ± 2.86%) showed dominance. In the lagoon, the Ulva samples were characterized by the same genera, with Granulosicoccus (13.7 ± 10.8%) being the most abundant followed by Glaciecola (28.7 ± 18.4%), uncl. Rhodobacteraceae (5.8 ± 6.5%), and uncl. Hyphomonadaceae (5.6 ± 2.0%) as a fourth dominant taxon worth of mention. Sample UL1 from coastal lagoon displayed a high abundance of the genera Lewinella (30%) and Loktanella (16%), but these values dropped sharply in the other Ulva replicates from the lagoon. Eight hundred eight distinct genera (97%) were pooled into one group (“others”) because they contained <1% (18 reads) of the total sequences. All the microhabitats showed an equivalent abundance of sequences distributed across low abundance taxa (19% in UA, 23% in UL, 27% in WA, 28%). In particular, Planktomarina (16.3 ± 0.3%), Lentibacter (12.0 ± 0.6%), uncl. Cryomorphaceae (10.2% ± 0.8), uncl. Burkholderiaceae (9.6 ± 1.4%), Pseudohongiella (3.8 ± 0.5%), and Amilibacter (3.7 ± 1.2%) were characteristic genera of the lagoon water samples since they were 10-fold more abundant than in all other microhabitats. Following the ANCOM analyses, only uncl. Burkholderiaceae genus was significantly enriched in lagoon water (Table 5). While water aquaculture samples were characterized by the Saprospiraceae genus with an abundance of 21 ± 13.4% (Figure 5), SAR11 (lately called Pelagibacterales), and Candidatus aquiluna genera, were shared between water samples with abundances ranging around 2% compared with the Ulva samples, where their abundances were <0.03%. In both aquaculture water and Ulva, Parcubacteria (Patescibacteria group) were significantly more abundant than in the corresponding lagoon microhabitats.
Exploration of Amplicon Sequence Variants Table
At the finest level of taxonomic classification, we determined the number of shared and unique ASVs across all microhabitats using “Intersecting sets diagrams”. In total, 3141 ASVs were detected in this study. Although the lagoon water did not hold the highest richness (Figure 3A), it harbored the highest number of unique ASVs equivalent to 24% (754 out 3141 ASVs), followed by the number of unique ASVs of the aquaculture water (17%: 542 ASVs), lagoon Ulva (17%: 535), and aquaculture Ulva with 8% (239) of the total ASVs (Figure 6). It was quite expected that the Ulva and water samples collected in the aquaculture system shared a higher number of ASVs (22%: 697) compared to the values derived from equivalent samples (9%: 293 ASVs). The proportion of common ASVs between Ulva grown in the lagoon and aquaculture was comparable to that of common ASVs between lagoon and aquaculture water samples, 14% (446) and 14% (431), respectively (Figure 6).
FIGURE 6

Intersection plot showing all the unique and common ASVs across all prokaryotic communities analyzed in this study (UL, Ulva from lagoon; UA, Ulva from aquaculture; WL, water from lagoon; WA, water from aquaculture). Values at the top of vertical bars refer to the number of ASVs common to the microenvironments linked underneath, which represent the intersections. The horizontal bars on the left show the size of each prokaryotic community in terms of ASV numbers. The two graphs show the microbiomes before (A) and after (B) the removal of low abundance ASVs (with less than 10 reads across the whole dataset).
A method to intuitively gain information on the distribution of the low abundance taxa across the microhabitats is to perform an intersection analysis before and upon removal of low abundance taxa. For that reason, the threshold was set to 10 reads across all samples. Using this cut-off to filter out extremely low abundant ASVs, 1015 (32%) ASVs were removed. Within the remaining 2126 ASVs the pool of ASVs specific to lagoon water, lagoon algae, and aquaculture water was drastically reduced. Each of these microhabitats lost 11, 8, and 9%, respectively, of their original pool of “specific” ASVs. In contrast, the number of ASVs specific to cultivated Ulva specimens was reduced by only 4% (125 ASVs).
It is important to note that the pool of common ASVs between the four microhabitats and the pool of common ASVs between aquaculture and lagoon Ulva contained only medium- or high-frequency taxa with more than 10 reads. Therefore, no reduction in the number of common ASVs was observed and the removal of rare ASVs has eliminated only the “specific” ones (Figure 6).
The described differences between the microhabitats highlighted above depend on the presence/absence of ASVs and the variation of abundance of ASVs. According to the ANCOM analysis, three ASVs were found to be significantly different when cultivated and wild Ulva microbiomes were compared. Uncl. Rhodobacteraceae and uncl. Tateyamaria were enriched in cultivated Ulva, while uncl. Psychrosphaera has enriched in lagoon Ulva (Table 4). In the aquatic habitat, however, only two Burkholderiaceae ASVs were significantly enriched in the lagoon (Table 5).
Taxa With Beneficial Activity for Macroalgal Growth
The ASVs table was examined for bacterial strains known to release compounds that induce the growth and morphogenesis of U. mutabilis or U. intestinalis in the laboratory (
Seven out of 11 taxa previously tested for morphogenetic activity in the laboratory were found in both water and Ulva-associated samples (Figure 7). Their relative frequencies within each biotope (i.e., lagoon vs. culture water and lagoon vs. reared Ulva) were then compared. The two most common morphogenetically active genera were Sulfitobacter spp. and Maribacter spp. with 1.4 and 0.8% of ASVs, respectively, in aquaculture Ulva. While these strains are known as producers of morphogens, Pseudoalteromonas spp. and Alteromonas spp. were also abundant (0.5% each in the lagoon Ulva), which do not influence the growth of U. mutabilis. We found that Maribacter spp., Sulfitobacter spp., and Roseobacter spp., which release morphogens, were significantly enriched in rearing water (Figure 7).
FIGURE 7

Bar chart shows relative abundances (in %) of 16S rRNA gene reads of taxa, that were tested for morphogenetic activity in previous studies (see the section “Materials and Methods”), associated with Ulva tissue (green) and in water (blue) samples. Bacterial strains that possess morphogenetic activity in bioassay were defined as “active strains,” otherwise as “inactive strains”. Values were Hellinger-transformed. Significant differences between the two compartments (aquaculture – dark color and lagoon – light color) are highlighted by an asterisk (p-value ≤ 0.05). UA, Ulva collected from aquaculture tanks; UL, Ulva strains from coastal lagoon; WA, water from aquaculture; WL, water from coastal lagoon.
Algoriphagus spp. (also morphogenetically active) and Pseudoalteromonas spp. were significantly more frequently found in lagoon water, while Alteromonas spp. and Pseudoalteromonas spp. were significantly enriched in connection with the lagoon Ulva (p-value ≤ 0.05) (Figure 7).
Discussion
Our study characterized the microbial community in macroalgal aquaculture compared to wild sea lettuce algae (U. rigida) living in the same geographical area. We discovered over 3000 ASVs across four microhabitats, all characterized by different bacterial taxonomic profiles. CHAO1 and the Shannon Index showed that the prokaryotic communities of Ulva in the lagoon were characterized by higher fluctuations in the presence/absence of species of medium/low frequency between replicates than Ulva in aquaculture. Accordingly, similar fluctuations in species uniformity were observed. The lagoon area (along a transect of 1 km) selected for sampling Ulva tissues was characterized by more varied environmental conditions in which algae grew and developed in situ than those controlled in the aquaculture system. The presence of surrounding macro- and microalgal assemblages, meio- and macro-fauna and sediment inputs that are absent (or much reduced) in the aquaculture tanks, all bear potential to influence the structure of bacterioplankton and algal-associated communities. Future studies might consider the contribution of the different microniches within the lagoon to the complexity of the observed microbiome and not assuming that the lagoon is a homogeneous source of bacteria for the IMTA system.
High Diversity of Microbiomes in Ulva’s Aquaculture
Although coastal water faces a complex environment, we found equivalent diversity (richness and evenness) of Ulva-associated microbiomes collected in lagoon and aquaculture samples. It is well known that marine hosts select a specific microbiome, but in cultivated species the richness of this microbiome tends to be lower than the same species in nature as described for the Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) (
Even though aquaculture water held the highest ASVs richness in our study, it showed the lowest number of unique ASVs. Ulva tissue and water samples from aquaculture shared almost four times more ASVs than Ulva tissue and the water samples collected from the lagoon. Two main reasons can explain the discrepancy: First, the amount of biomass (kg/L of seawater) in macroalgae tanks was much higher than the biomass in lagoon ponds or channel per volume. Secondly, the effective water exchange in the lagoon is always much higher than that of the aquaculture tanks. The macroalgae tanks were fed with filtered waters, leaving out particulate matter and organisms bigger than 40 μm in size, allowing the algal prokaryotic community to be the major source of bacteria that influences the community structure directly as seen experimentally in a recent study (
In contrast, wild Ulva in the lagoon was in contact with a more diverse range of biotic and abiotic agents that shape bacterioplankton community structure and variability, which in turn will influence patterns of community assembly on macroalgal leaves. In fact, during low tide, algae were frequently laying on the hard substrate or other organisms as marine plants, macro- and micro-algae. They were surrounded by vertebrate and invertebrates and by losing sediment transported by tidal currents. Water samples were considered in this work regardless of their complexity in composition (microscopic particles-associated and free-living bacteria) (Rieck et al., 2015) because both parts can act as microbial sources for the Ulva holobiont.
IMTA Shapes the Structure of the Microbial Community
Alphaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Deltaproteobacteria, and Actinobacteria were the most abundant classes shared in all microhabitats. These results highlight that abundant ASVs are essential for Ulva in the lagoon and the aquaculture. Potentially, the systematic presence of these taxa is the result of the common functional interactions that exist between Ulva and its microbiome (
Glaciecola species have been previously isolated from brown macroalgae (Fucus vesiculosus and Laminaria sp.) (Wiese et al., 2009;
One unclassified genus of the Saprospiraceae family (Bacteroidetes phylum) was one of the most abundant epiphytic taxa that characterized the U. australis microbiome, contrasting with their almost complete absence in water samples (
Another phylum that was already found associated with macroalgae and that can catabolize the macroalgal deriving DOM, as well as the structural polysaccharides of cell walls, is Planctomycetes (Lachnit et al., 2010). Sulfatase coding genes that are involved in the catabolism of polysaccharides characterize it. Different genera of this phylum were characterized by distinct numbers of sulfatase genes that likely drive differential colonization patterns across macroalgal classes due to their differences in the cell wall molecular composition (
During the decay of Ulva lactuca, sulfate-reducing bacteria play an important role in nutrient cycling (Nedergaard et al., 2002). In the present study, aquaculture tanks were characterized by strong and continuous aeration that did not allow the formation of anaerobic zones with anoxic or hypoxic conditions, even when high algal biomass is achieved at the end of the growing period. Consequently, sulfate-reducing bacteria (Desulfobacterales, Desulfovibrionales, and Desulfuromonadales) were not very abundant in aquaculture microhabitats. Their abundance increases randomly in wild Ulva collected in the lagoon but was more consistent in the water samples of the same environment.
The Potential Role of Different Bacterial Taxa in Cross-Kingdom Interactions
The Granulosicoccus genus (Gammaproteobacteria class), which was mostly found associated with algal tissue, showed two to three orders of magnitude higher abundances in algae (aquaculture and lagoon) than in the water samples. This genus has been described to be present all year long in brown algae such as Mastocarpus sp. (in gametophyte and sporophyte) and Nereocystis luetkeana (
Red, brown, and green macroalgae showed production of some levels of phytohormones in their tissues (Tarakhovskaya et al., 2007), however for some lineages, exogenous phytohormones such as cytokinin- and auxin-like compounds are necessary for their development, and the co-evolution of these processes has been suggested (
Conclusion
Our study approached the composition and structure of the microbiome in U. rigida at an IMTA site where the primary purpose is the production of high-quality fish and Ulva biomass that meets market requirements. We conclude that (i) the IMTA promotes visible changes in the prokaryotic community associated with cultivated Ulva species. (ii) Opposing aquaculture trends, the diversity of microbiomes in rearing water was improved and likely impacting positively the system. (iii) Beneficial bacteria, which can affect Ulva’s development, were enriched in the aquaculture, suggesting that knowledge of the microbiome of macroalgae in aquaculture is of paramount importance for the improvement of rearing methods and biomass yields.
Statements
Data availability statement
The raw sequences of the phylogenetic analysis of Ulva were deposited in GenBank under the following accession codes: MN444712–MN444720 (ITS sequences) and MN450419–MN450427 (rbcL sequences). The entire dataset for the microbiome analysis (PRJEB34347) can be retrieved from ENA (European Nucleotide Archive) through the following URL: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/view/PRJEB34347.
Author contributions
GC and TW contributed to the conception and design of the study. TW and RC supervised the study. GC measured and analyzed all data and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. GC, MK, RC, and TW interpreted the data. MA provided the resources and supervised the project at ALGAplus. All authors contributed to the manuscript revision, and read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript.
Funding
This work was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 642575 – The ALgal Microbiome: Friends and Foes (ALFF) (to GC, MA, RC, and TW) and supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, CRC 1127 ChemBioSys) (to GC, MK, and TW). The authors would like to acknowledge networking support by the COST Action “Phycomorph” FA1406 (to MA and TW).
Acknowledgments
We thank Georg Pohnert (University Jena) and the ALGAplus team for their great support.
Conflict of interest
MA was employed by the company ALGAplus Lda. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Footnotes
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Summary
Keywords
algal morphogenesis, blue economy, green algae, host–microbe interactions, IMTA, infochemicals, morphogen, sea lettuce
Citation
Califano G, Kwantes M, Abreu MH, Costa R and Wichard T (2020) Cultivating the Macroalgal Holobiont: Effects of Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture on the Microbiome of Ulva rigida (Chlorophyta). Front. Mar. Sci. 7:52. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2020.00052
Received
05 November 2019
Accepted
27 January 2020
Published
12 February 2020
Volume
7 - 2020
Edited by
Bernardo Antonio Perez Da Gama, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
Reviewed by
Alejandro H. Buschmann, University of Los Lagos, Chile; Henrique Fragoso Santos, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
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© 2020 Califano, Kwantes, Abreu, Costa and Wichard.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Thomas Wichard, Thomas.Wichard@uni-jena.de
This article was submitted to Marine Ecosystem Ecology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Marine Science
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