1 Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.
2 Department of Biology, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.
3 Coral Reef Restoration Alliance (CORALL), Bridgetown, Barbados.
4 Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA USA.
5 Department of Biology and Chemical Sciences, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados.
6 Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.
7 Department of Biochemistry, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.

We study the microbiome of sea water collected from two locations of the Barbadian coral reefs. The two sites differ in several environmental and ecological variables including their endogenous benthic community and their proximity to urban development and runoffs from inland watersheds. The composition of the microbial communities was estimated using whole genome DNA shotgun sequencing with adjuvant measurements of chemical and environmental qualities. Although both sites exhibit a similar degree of richness, the less urbanized site (Maycocks reef at Hangman's Bay) has a strong concentration of phototrophs whereas the more urbanized location (Bellairs reef at Folkstone) is enriched for copiotrophs, macroalgal symbionts and marine-related disease-bearing organisms from taxa scattered across the tree of life. Our results are concordant with previous profiles of warm ocean surface waters, suggesting our approach captures the state of each coral reef site, setting the stage for longitudinal studies of marine microbiome dynamics in Barbados.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00338-022-02330-y.