{"id":817400,"date":"2026-07-22T21:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T21:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/817400\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T21:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T21:59:12","slug":"great-barrier-reef-microbiome-mapped-as-researchers-discover-500-bacterial-species-previously-unknown-to-science-great-barrier-reef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/817400\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Barrier Reef microbiome mapped as researchers discover 500 bacterial species previously unknown to science | Great Barrier Reef"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than a decade after the human microbiome<\/a> was comprehensively mapped, scientists have now identified the vast communities of microbes that make up the Great Barrier Reef.<\/p>\n

Analysing DNA from seawater samples of 48 reefs, researchers have mapped the microbiome of the Great Barrier Reef<\/a>, documenting more than 360,000 distinct viruses as well as more than 500 new bacterial species not previously known to science.<\/p>\n

The research, published in the journal Nature<\/a>, was led by scientists at the University of Queensland and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS).<\/p>\n

Dr Yun Kit Yeoh, a senior research scientist at AIMS and a senior author of the paper, described microorganisms as a \u201cvery important part of the reef ecosystem\u201d that underpinned marine food chains.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMany of the microbes on the reef can photosynthesise \u2026 like plants, they can take light energy [and] can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are eaten by krill and other zooplankton which are then consumed by other animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t been able to really study a lot of them except for a select few that we can grow properly in the lab on petri dishes.\u201d<\/p>\n

But recent technological advances have allowed scientists to sequence DNA taken from the environment, giving a fuller picture of these microscopic communities.<\/p>\n

The field \u2013 known as metagenomics \u2013 is akin to solving thousands of jigsaw puzzles simultaneously; a single drop of seawater can contain the DNA of thousands of different microbes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t have been able to do this, say, 10 years ago, but fortunately computing power keeps increasing at an exponential rate,\u201d said Prof Philip Hugenholtz, a microbiologist at the University of Queensland<\/a> and a senior author on the paper.<\/p>\n

The research, which first began more than five years ago, identified 808,585 viral genomes belonging to what the researchers estimate to be 362,802 different viruses.<\/p>\n

The analysis also identified 5,283 bacterial and archaeal genomes representing 876 distinct species \u2013 584 of which have never been documented before.<\/p>\n

Hugenholtz said those large figures were expected. \u201cThis is just how huge the microbial world is,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know that everywhere we sequence \u2026 there\u2019s always new viruses turning up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a little bit surprised that we found over 500 new bacterial species.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe human gut and the marine ecosystem I would say are the two most sequenced ecosystems on the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discovery raises the question as to whether the species were unique to the Great Barrier Reef, or were yet to be discovered in other reef ecosystems, Hugenholtz added.<\/p>\n

The researchers believe the mapped microbiome could be used as a reef monitoring tool. \u201cWe can now use it to start exploring what makes a healthy reef system,\u201d Yeoh said. \u201cThen we can examine how these microbes respond to, say, changes \u2026 associated with climate change, with heat stress, bleaching, human activity, or other environmental perturbations.<\/p>\n

\u201cMicrobial communities can tell you an awful lot. Often you\u2019ll see changes in the microbial populations before you see more visible changes [on the reef].\u201d<\/p>\n

The microbes in a particular marine area can indicate whether fishing has occurred in a no-take zone, for example. They can also indicate whether heavy metal contamination has occurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite expensive to get a readout of heavy metals \u2013 it\u2019s cheaper to get a readout of the changes that they have on microbial communities,\u201d Hugenholtz said.<\/p>\n

The researchers used long-read sequencing technology, which enables large strands of DNA to be read at one time, without the need to break them into smaller fragments.<\/p>\n

Hugenholtz likens it to doing jigsaw puzzles with bigger pieces, \u201cwhich means you\u2019ll be able to put those jigsaw puzzles back together more easily\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than a decade after the human microbiome was comprehensively mapped, scientists have now identified the vast communities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,63,128],"class_list":["post-817400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}