Diaz-Pulido, Guillermo, Melvin, Steven D., Ferguson, Sophie, Severati, Andrea, Doll, Peter C., Uthicke, Sven, Negri, Andrew P., and Abdul Wahab, Muhammad A. (2026) Species-specific metabolomic profiles of coral reef coralline algae and their influence on the larval settlement of corals and crown-of-thorns starfish. Scientific Reports, 16. 409. pp. 1-18.

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Abstract

To address a significant knowledge gap in chemical ecology underpinning larval settlement processes on coral reefs, we examined the tissue-associated metabolomes using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy across 14 species of crustose coralline red algae (CCA) and one non-coralline calcareous red alga collected from the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. We further explored the relationship between algal metabolites and the settlement success of fifteen reef-building coral species across five families, as well as a key coral predator, the crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS; Acanthaster cf. solaris). We found that algal metabolomes are highly variable and differ among species, phylogenetic lineages, and reef habitats, highlighting the combined influence of evolutionary history and environmental context on algal metabolomes. We also identified strong, positive correlations between specific algal metabolites, particularly disaccharides and trisaccharides (e.g., raffinose, maltose), and glycine betaine with high settlement success in both corals and CoTS. This study provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of coralline algal metabolomes and their ecological significance to coral reef ecosystems. These results provide novel chemical, biological and ecological insights that may be used to inform the optimisation of coral aquaculture techniques for reef restoration, as well as potential strategies for controlling CoTS outbreaks to mitigate ongoing reef decline.

Item ID:	90232
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	2045-2322
Keywords:	Acanthaster, Chemical cues, Coral larval settlement, Crustose coralline algae, Great Barrier Reef, Reef restoration
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
Date Deposited:	14 Jan 2026 01:27
FoR Codes:	31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3108 Plant biology > 310801 Phycology (incl. marine grasses) @ 30% 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) @ 20% 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3107 Microbiology > 310703 Microbial ecology @ 50%
SEO Codes:	28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280102 Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences @ 80% 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1805 Marine systems and management > 180501 Assessment and management of benthic marine ecosystems @ 20%
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