Systematic Revision of Symbiodiniaceae Highlights the Antiquity and Diversity of Coral Endosymbionts.

By Todd C. LaJeunesse, J. E. Parkinson, P. Gabrielson, H. Jeong, J. Reimer, Christian R. Voolstra, Scott R. Santos. Current Biology, 2018

1,449 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The advent of molecular data has transformed the science of organizing and studying life on Earth. Genetics-based evidence provides fundamental insights into the diversity, ecology, and origins of many biological systems, including the mutualisms between metazoan hosts and their micro-algal partners. A well-known example is the dinoflagellate endosymbionts ("zooxanthellae") that power the growth of stony corals and coral reef ecosystems. Once assumed to encompass a single panmictic species, genetic evidence has revealed a divergent and rich diversity within the zooxanthella genus Symbiodinium. Despite decades of reporting on the significance of this diversity, the formal systematics of these eukaryotic microbes have not kept pace, and a major revision is long overdue. With the consideration of molecular, morphological, physiological, and ecological data, we propose that evolutionarily divergent Symbiodinium "clades" are equivalent to genera in the family Symbiodiniaceae, and we provide formal descriptions for seven of them. Additionally, we recalibrate the molecular clock for the group and amend the date for the earliest diversification of this family to the middle of the Mesozoic Era (∼160 mya). This timing corresponds with the adaptive radiation of analogs to modern shallow-water stony corals during the Jurassic Period and connects the rise of these symbiotic dinoflagellates with the emergence and evolutionary success of reef-building corals. This improved framework acknowledges the Symbiodiniaceae's long evolutionary history while filling a pronounced taxonomic gap. Its adoption will facilitate scientific dialog and future research on the physiology, ecology, and evolution of these important micro-algae.

Subfields: Ecology, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7be49b3f9cd02ad1a3a39baaec60efc2006135f7

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Citations in the corpus

Remarkably high and consistent tolerance of a Red Sea coral to acute and chronic thermal stress exposures (2021, background): “Indeed, there is extensive evidence that the symbiotic relationship between corals and the unicellular alga (Symbiodiniaceae; LaJeunesse et al. 2018) inhabiting their tissue breaks down above certain temperature thresholds (reviewed in Jokiel 2004).”
Coral restoration research and technical developments: what we have learned so far (2019, background): “…& Jeong gen. nov. (LaJeunesse et al. 2018)] in adult corals, and are mostly the more stress-tolerant clade A [Symbiodinium Hansen & Daugbjerg (LaJeunesse et al. 2018)] and/or clade D [now Durusdinium LaJeunesse gen. nov. (LaJeunesse et al. 2018)] when acquired by juvenile corals (Baker et…”
Sexual production of corals for reef restoration in the Anthropocene (2020, background): “Mutually beneficial symbioses with photosynthetic dinoflagellates (Symbiodiniaceae, sensu LaJeunesse et al. 2018) and enduring partnerships with an array of bacterial, archaeal, fungal, protistan, and viral associates together form the coral holobiont (Bourne et al. 2016).”