Temperature-Driven Local Acclimatization of Symbiodnium Hosted by the Coral Galaxea fascicularis at Hainan Island, China

The success of coral reef ecosystems largely depends on mutualistic symbiosis between scleractinian corals and the dinoflagellate photosymbiont Symbiodiniurn spp. However, further investigation is needed to elucidate the flexibility of coral-algae associations in response to environmental changes. I...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zhou, Guowei, Cai, Lin, Li, Yuanchao, Tong, Haoya, Jiang, Lei, Zhang, Yuyang, Lei, Xinming, Guo, Minglan, Liu, Sheng, Qian, Pei-Yuan, Huang, Hui
Format: Report
Language:English
Published: FRONTIERS MEDIA SA 2017
Subjects:
Microbiology
coral
Symbiodinium
symbiosis
diversity
flexibility
SYMBIODINIUM DIVERSITY
SCLERACTINIAN CORAL
CLIMATE-CHANGE
GENUS SYMBIODINIUM
ALGAL SYMBIOSIS
ENVIRONMENTAL-CHANGE
OCEAN ACIDIFICATION
BLEACHING EVENT
REEF CORALS
Ocean acidification
Online Access:http://ir.gig.ac.cn/handle/344008/43729
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmich.2017.02487
Description
Summary:The success of coral reef ecosystems largely depends on mutualistic symbiosis between scleractinian corals and the dinoflagellate photosymbiont Symbiodiniurn spp. However, further investigation is needed to elucidate the flexibility of coral-algae associations in response to environmental changes. In this study, we applied a molecular method (high-throughput internal transcribed spacer 2 region of ribosomal RNA gene amplicon sequencing) to explore diversity and flexibility of Symbiodinium associated with Galaxea fascicularis, an ecologically important scleractinian coral species collected at five locations around Hainan Island, South China Sea. The results revealed a high diversity of Symbiodinium subclades with C2r and D17 being dominant in G. fascicularis. Glade D Symbiodinium occurred most frequently in habitats where the annual average sea surface temperatures are the highest, suggesting that temperature is an important factor in determining Symbiodinium D abundance in G. fascicularis. The distribution of coral-Symbiodinium associations are possibly mediated by trade-off mechanisms which change the relative abundance of Symbiodinium clades/subclades under different environmental conditions. These findings provide further evidence that reef-building corals such as G. fascicularis can shuffle their symbionts to cope with environmental changes, and have implications for our understanding of the ecology of flexible coral-algal symbiosis.

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