ArticleThe ISME journal2016
Exploring the Symbiodinium rare biosphere provides evidence for symbiont switching in reef-building corals.
Article in The ISME journal, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 77 papers.
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Who cites it
77 citing papers in PubMed.
- Evaluating the protection status and exposure to warming of Caribbean reefs with high functional potential.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2026Article
- Heat-evolved coral photosymbionts exhibit dampened stress responses across distinct physiological contexts.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Review
- A quick and reliable menthol-induced bleaching protocol for the Caribbean staghorn coral,PeerJ · 2026Article
- Coral Skeletal Cores as Windows Into Past Symbiodiniaceae Community Dynamics.Global change biology · 2025Article
- Seasonal Variation in In Hospite but Not Free-Living, Symbiodiniaceae Communities Around Hainan Island, China.Microorganisms · 2025Article
- Exogenous diatoms ameliorate thermal bleaching of symbiont bearing benthic foraminifera.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Coral microbiome in estuary coral community of Pearl River Estuary: insights into variation in coral holobiont adaptability to low-salinity conditions.BMC microbiology · 2025Article
- Ex Situ Thermal Preconditioning Modulates Coral Physiology and Enhances Heat Tolerance: A Multispecies Perspective for Active Restoration.Environmental science & technology · 2025Article
- The Influence of Symbiont Identity on the Proteomic and Metabolomic Responses of the Model Cnidarian Aiptasia to Thermal Stress.Environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Resolving Symbiodiniaceae Diversity Across Coral Microhabitats and Reef Niches.Environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Horizontal transmission of heat-evolved microalgal symbionts in adult corals.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Fine-Scale Geographic Variation ofEcology and evolution · 2024Article
- Highly Diverse Symbiodiniaceae Types Hosted by Corals in a Global Hotspot of Marine Biodiversity.Microbial ecology · 2024Article
- The microbiome dynamics and interaction of endosymbiotic Symbiodiniaceae and fungi are associated with thermal bleaching susceptibility of coral holobionts.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- A gauge of coral physiology: re-examining temporal changes inISME communications · 2024Article
- Algal symbiont diversity in Acropora muricata from the extreme reef of Bouraké associated with resistance to coral bleaching.PloS one · 2024Article
- Microbial shifts associated to ENSO-derived thermal anomalies reveal coral acclimation at holobiont level.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Marine Heatwave Caused Differentiated Dysbiosis in Photosymbiont Assemblages of Corals and Hydrocorals During El Niño 2015/2016.Microbial ecology · 2023Article
- Chemical mutagenesis and thermal selection of coral photosymbionts induce adaptation to heat stress with trait trade-offs.Evolutionary applications · 2023Article
17 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Reef-building corals possess a range of acclimatisation and adaptation mechanisms to respond to seawater temperature increases. In some corals, thermal tolerance increases through community composition changes of their dinoflagellate endosymbionts (Symbiodinium spp.), but this mechanism is believed to be limited to the Symbiodinium types already present in the coral tissue acquired during early life stages. Compelling evidence for symbiont switching, that is, the acquisition of novel Symbiodinium types from the environment, by adult coral colonies, is currently lacking. Using deep sequencing analysis of Symbiodinium rDNA internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) PCR amplicons from two pocilloporid coral species, we show evidence consistent with de novo acquisition of Symbiodinium types from the environment by adult corals following two consecutive bleaching events. Most of these newly detected symbionts remained in the rare biosphere (background types occurring below 1% relative abundance), but one novel type reached a relative abundance of ~33%. Two de novo acquired Symbiodinium types belong to the thermally resistant clade D, suggesting that this switching may have been driven by consecutive thermal bleaching events. Our results are particularly important given the maternal mode of Symbiodinium transmission in the study species, which generally results in high symbiont specificity. These findings will cause a paradigm shift in our understanding of coral-Symbiodinium symbiosis flexibility and mechanisms of environmental acclimatisation in corals.
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