View article

A combination of approaches was used to examine the bacterial communities associated with 2 deep-water Scleritoderma spp. sponges. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis analysis of partial 16S rRNA genes extracted from sponge tissue was used to determine the structure of the sponge-associated bacterial community. Cultivation studies using a variety of marine-based media and medium additions were performed to characterize the cultivable aerobic heterotrophic bacterial community. DNA was extracted from recovered isolates, mixed, and PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis was performed to demonstrate the differences between the recoverable microorganisms and the entire bacterial community. Results indicated that, as expected, only a small fraction of the bacterial community could be cultivated and that the isolates appeared to be non-representative of sponge-associated communities for …