Multispecies Microbial Mutualisms on Coral Reefs: The Host as a Habitat
- 1 October 2003
- journal article
- review article
- Published by University of Chicago Press in The American Naturalist
- Vol. 162 (S4), S51-S62
- https://doi.org/10.1086/378684
Abstract
Reef-building corals associate with a diverse array of eukaryotic and noneukaryotic microbes. Best known are dinoflagellates in the genus Symbiodinium ("zooxanthellae"), which are photosynthetic symbionts found in all reef-building corals. Once considered a single species, they are now recognized as several large, genetically diverse groups that often co-occur within a single host species or colony. Variation among Symbiodinium in host identities, tolerance to stress, and ability to colonize hosts has been documented, but there is little information on the ecology of zooxanthellar free-living stages and how different zooxanthellae perform as partners. Other microbial associates of reef corals are much less well known, but studies indicate that individual coral colonies host diverse assemblages of bacteria, some of which seem to have species-specific associations. This diversity of microbial associates has important evolutionary and ecological implications. Most mutualisms evolve as balanced reciprocations that allow partners to detect cheaters, particularly when partners are potentially diverse and can be transmitted horizontally. Thus, environmental stresses that incapacitate the ability of partners to reciprocate can destabilize associations by eliciting rejection by their hosts. Coral bleaching (the loss of zooxanthellae) and coral diseases, both increasing over the last several decades, may be examples of stress-related mutualistic instability.Keywords
This publication has 57 references indexed in Scilit:
- Low symbiont diversity in southern Great Barrier Reef corals, relative to those of the CaribbeanLimnology and Oceanography, 2003
- Molecular phylogeny of symbiotic dinoflagellates inferred from partial chloroplast large subunit (23S)-rDNA sequencesMolecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 2002
- No habitat correlation of zooxanthellae in the coral genus Madracis on a Curaçao reefMarine Ecology Progress Series, 2002
- GENETIC COMPARISONS OF FRESHLY ISOLATED VERSUS CULTURED SYMBIOTIC DINOFLAGELLATES: IMPLICATIONS FOR EXTRAPOLATING TO THE INTACT SYMBIOSISJournal of Phycology, 2001
- Early ontogenetic expression of specificity in a cnidarian-algal symbiosisMarine Ecology Progress Series, 2001
- PHYLOGENETIC POSITION OF SYMBIODINIUM (DINOPHYCEAE) ISOLATES FROM TRIDACNIDS (BIVALVIA), CARDIIDS (BIVALVIA), A SPONGE (PORIFERA), A SOFT CORAL (ANTHOZOA), AND A FREE‐LIVING STRAINJournal of Phycology, 1999
- Climate change, coral bleaching and the future of the world's coral reefsMarine and Freshwater Research, 1999
- Large-Subunit Ribosomal RNA Systematics of Symbiotic Dinoflagellates: Morphology Does Not Recapitulate PhylogenyMolecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 1998
- REVIEW—DIVERSITY AND ECOLOGY OF ZOOXANTHELLAE ON CORAL REEFSJournal of Phycology, 1998
- Genetic variation in Symbiodinium (=Gymnodinium) microadriaticum Freudenthal, and specificity in its symbiosis with marine invertebrates. II. Morphological variation in Symbiodinium microadriaticumProceedings of the Royal Society of London. B. Biological Sciences, 1980