Plant-microbe relationships play critical roles in the functioning and health of terrestrial plants, but little is known about this relationship in marine angiosperms such as seagrasses. Here we investigated the microbial communities associated with the seagrass Enhalus acoroides throughout Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia. At each sampling location we collected 10 individual and unconnected plants. Each plant was subsequently broken down into leaves, roots and rhizomes. In addition to living plant parts a sediment sample was taken in close proximity to each. Using high throughput 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing we characterised the bacterial communities associated with each plant part and the associated sediment sample. Results indicate geographic structuring of bacterial communities, with a significant pattern of distance decay suggesting dispersal limitation is a contributing factor to the differences we see in bacterial community structure. Bacterial communities can be further differentiated by the function of the collected sample (leaf, root and rhizome), and we identified a number of microbial indicator species that are associated with each plant part. Further analysis revealed the presence of several microbial taxa that have previously been identified as indicators of ‘unhealthy’ or ‘stressed’ seagrass meadows. This study addresses a current scientific gap related to the characterisation of seagrass microbiomes, and provides a foundation on which future studies can build, particularly those in the Southeast Asian seagrass biodiversity hotspot.

中文翻译：

---

各种各样的微生物群落：空间和结构因素如何塑造新加坡和马来西亚半岛海草相关的细菌群落

植物与微生物的关系在陆生植物的功能和健康中起着至关重要的作用，但对于诸如海草等海洋被子植物的这种关系知之甚少。在这里，我们调查了整个新加坡和马来西亚半岛与海草Enhalus类固醇相关的微生物群落。在每个采样点，我们收集了10个独立的工厂。随后将每种植物分解为叶，根和根茎。除了有生命的植物部位外，还靠近每个部位采集了沉积物样品。使用高通量16S rRNA扩增子测序，我们表征了与每个植物部分和相关的沉积物样品相关的细菌群落。结果表明细菌群落的地理结构，距离衰减的显着模式表明分散限制是我们在细菌群落结构中看到的差异的一个促成因素。细菌群落可以通过收集的样品（叶，根和根茎）的功能进一步区分，我们确定了与每个植物部位相关的许多微生物指示剂种类。进一步的分析显示，先前已被鉴定为“不健康”或“紧张”海草草甸的几种微生物分类群的存在。这项研究解决了当前与海草微生物群落特征相关的科学空白，并为将来的研究，尤其是东南亚海草生物多样性热点地区的研究奠定了基础。