Clade D Symbiodinium in Scleractinian Corals: A “Nugget” of Hope, a Selfish Opportunist, an Ominous Sign, or All of the Above?

By M. Stat, Ruth D. Gates. 2011

245 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Clade D Symbiodinium are thermally tolerant coral endosymbionts that confer resistance to elevated sea surface temperature and bleaching to the host. The union between corals and clade D is thus important to management and coral conservation. Here, we review the diversity and biogeography of clade D Symbiodinium, factors linked to increasing abundances of clade D, and the benefits and drawbacks of associating with clade D for corals. We identify clade D Symbiodinium as uncommon pandemically distributed generalists found in higher abundances on reefs exposed to challenging sea surface temperatures and local stressors or with a history of bleaching. This distribution suggests that clade D Symbiodinium are mostly opportunistic endosymbionts, whereby they outcompete and replace optimal symbionts in health-compromised corals. We conclude by identifying research gaps that limit our understanding of the adaptive role clade D Symbiodinium play in corals and discuss the utility of monitoring clade D Symbiodinium as indicators of habitat degradation in coral reef ecosystems.

Subfields: Ecology, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7c71f72db2408ba438870702d33c9c6f7f68e498

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In Ecology

1. S. Davies
2. A. Marchetti
3. K. Castillo
4. J. Ries
5. Chaolun Allen Chen
6. Tye Pettay
7. Drew
8. Todd

In Oceanography

1. A. Marchetti
2. S. Davies
3. K. Castillo
4. J. Ries
5. Chaolun Allen Chen
6. J. E. Parkinson

Citations in the corpus

• Ecologically differentiated stress-tolerant endosymbionts in the dinoflagellate genus Symbiodinium (Dinophyceae) Clade D are different species (2014, background): “…relate to underlying problems with taxonomic resolution and how to delimit species of ‘‘morphologically cryptic’’ Symbiodinium (Blank & Trench, 1985; LaJeunesse 2001; Correa & Baker 2009; Sampayo et al. 2009; Stat & Gates 2011; LaJeunesse et al. 2012), many of which do not persist in culture media.”
• Symbiodinium Functional Diversity in the Coral Siderastrea siderea Is Influenced by Thermal Stress and Reef Environment, but Not Ocean Acidification (2018, background): “Although both partners exhibit a wide array of physiological stress responses, Symbiodinium are assumed to initiate symbiosis breakdown (Berkelmans and Van Oppen, 2006; Stat et al., 2006; Stat and Gates, 2011) due to their production of ROS, which can damage the host (Lesser, 1996; Weis, 2008).”
• Consensus thermotolerance ranking for 110 Symbiodinium phylotypes: an exemplar utilization of a novel iterative partial‐rank aggregation tool with broad application potential (2017, background): “Functional Ecology © 2016 British Ecological Society, Functional Ecology, 31, 172–183 (when the thermal record does not support regular temperature extremes; Silverstein, Cunning & Baker 2014), or may aid in predicting the severity of future bleaching events (Stat & Gates 2011).”