Flexibility in algal endosymbioses shapes growth in reef corals
Little, Angela F., van Oppen, Madeleine J.H., and Willis, Bette (2004) Flexibility in algal endosymbioses shapes growth in reef corals. Science, 304 (5676). pp. 1492-1494.
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Abstract
The relation between corals and their algal endosymbionts has been a key to the success of scleractinian (stony) corals as modern reef-builders, but little is known about early stages in the establishment of the symbiosis. Here, we show that initial uptake of zooxanthellae by juvenile corals during natural infection is nonspecific (a potentially adaptive trait); the association is flexible and characterized by a change in (dominant) zooxanthella strains over time; and growth rates of experimentally infected coral holobionts are partly contingent on the zooxanthella strain harbored, with clade C–infected juveniles growing two to three times as fast as those infected with clade D.
| Item ID: | 1543 |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1095-9203 |
| Keywords: | scleractinian corals, algal endosymbionts, zooxanthella strains, uptake, juvenile corals, clade C, clade D, growth rates |
| Date Deposited: | 01 Jun 2007 |
| FoR Codes: | 06 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 0602 Ecology > 060205 Marine and Estuarine Ecology (incl Marine Ichthyology) @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 97 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 970106 Expanding Knowledge in the Biological Sciences @ 100% |
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