Structure of microbial community that sustain subtropical dry land and coral reef ecosystems in Australia.

澳大利亚东北部和冲绳拥有相同的亚热带环境，展现出非凡的生物多样性。这些地区不仅在陆地上有许多独特的生物群，在沿海也有许多独特的生物群。有趣的是，尽管地理上相距遥远，但澳大利亚东北部和冲绳也有相当多的物种。因此，对澳大利亚东北部和冲绳进行比较，以找到维持独特生态系统的基本基础，是特别有意义的。最近的研究表明，微生物群落在维持生态系统和生物圈中发挥着至关重要的作用。本研究项目旨在获取澳大利亚和冲绳地区微生物群落特征的基本信息。我们重点介绍了两个为期两年的项目中的两个微生物群落：白蚁中的肠道细菌(2005财年)和造礁珊瑚中的石器内细菌(2006财年)，分别作为陆地和海岸微生物群落的代表。对于陆地微生物群落的来源，…更重要的是，我们采集了澳大利亚分布的白蚁，并试图调查它们的肠道微生物和微生物内共生体。我们发现，与其他种类的白蚁包括在冲绳采集的白蚁一样，最原始的丹文氏白蚁的肠道菌群对纤维素的消化具有重要作用。对冲绳白蚁和澳大利亚白蚁的比较分析表明，肠道细菌也会产生各种纤维分解酶，这与之前的说法不同。我们已经成功地分离出细菌内共生菌Blattabacterium cuenoti(细菌门，黄杆菌)，并估计其基因组大小为650kb。结果表明，与自由生活的近亲相比，基因组减少了，而且这种减少在细胞内的变形细菌连接点是典型的。为了寻找海岸微生物群落的来源，我们收集了昆士兰的造礁珊瑚Goniastrea aspera的菌落。通过与詹姆斯·库克大学的安德鲁·贝尔德博士合作，我们成功地从磁岛的奈利湾和俄耳甫斯岛的先锋湾收集了20个珊瑚群体。我们对现场的水质进行了分析，以评估硝酸盐、亚硝酸盐、铵离子以及pH值和盐度。收集的样本被处理以从每个珊瑚骨骼中提取DNA。对数据的分析现在正在进行中。较少

Northeast Australia and Okinawa share subtropical environments that exhibit remarkable biodiversity. There are many unique biotas not only in land area but also n coastal area of those regions. Interestingly, Northeast Australia and Okinawa also share a considerable number of species in spite of the geographic distance. Thus, it is of particular interest to compare Northeast Australia and Okinawa to find a fundamental basis that sustain the unique ecosystems. Recent investigations have suggested that microbial community plays essential roles in sustaining ecosystems and biosphere. This research project aimed to obtain basic information on characteristics of microbial community in Australia and Okinawa. We highlighted two microbial community for the two-yeas project: intestinal bacteria in termites (FY 2005) and endolithic bacteria in reef-building corals (FY 2006) as representative terrestrial and coastal microbial community, respectively.For the source of terrestrial microbial communi … More ty, we collected termites distributed in Australia and attempted to investigate their intestinal microbes and microbial endosymbionts. We have found that the intestinal fauna of the most primitive termite Mastotermes danviniensis play a significant role in cellulose digestion as other termite species including those collected in Okinawa. Comparative analysis between Okinawan and Australian Nasutitermes termites revealed that the intestinal bacteria also produce a variety of cellulolytic enzymes unlike previously suggested. We have successfully parified the bacterial endosymbiont Blattabacterium cuenoti (Bacteriodetes, Flavobacteria) and have estimated the genome size to be 650 kb. The results suggest reduction in genome compared to free-living relatives, and that such reduction is typical in intracellular proteobacterial sympointsFor the source of coastal microbial community, we colleted the colonies of Goniastrea aspera, a reef-building corals from Queensland. Through collaboration with Dr. Andrew Baird of James Cook University, we have successfully collected 20 coral colonies from Nelly Bay of Magnetic Island and Pioneer Bay of Orpheus Island. We analyzed water quality on site to estimate nitrate, nitrite, ammonium ions as well as pH and salinity. The samples collected were processed to extract DNA from each coral skeleton. The analysis of the data is now under going. Less