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Zooxanthellar symbiosis in planula larvae of the coral Pocillopora damicornis.

ABSTRACT: We characterized the planular-zooxanthellae symbiosis of the coral Pocillopora damicornis using criteria that are familiar in studies on corals. Similar to adult corals, planulae exhibited photoacclimation, as changes in symbiont chlorophyll a (chl a); changes in the light-saturation constant for photosynthesis (I(k)); and, at insufficient light, fewer zooxanthellae, decreased respiration, increased weight loss, and increased sensitivity to photoinhibition. Numbers of zooxanthellae in newly-released planulae varied by at least three-fold within broods. Planulae with low versus high numbers of zooxanthellae (termed pale versus dark planulae, respectively) did not differ in symbiont chl-a content, I(k), or biomass-specific rate of dark respiration. Pale planulae had lower rates of photosynthesis, but this difference vanished after three weeks, when zooxanthellar numbers increased by 225% in pale planulae and by 31% in dark planulae. Numbers of zooxanthellae also increased significantly in planulae cultured in ammonium-enriched seawater; ammonium also apparently prevented weight loss and induced settlement. Approximately 70% of photosynthetically-fixed carbon (labeled using (14)C) apparently was translocated from the zooxanthellae to their host. A comparison of planulae cultured at 0.3% versus 11% sunlight suggested that photosynthesis provided ~ 31% of the energy utilized by the latter. Overall, we conclude that the physiology of symbiosis in planulae of P. damicornis is broadly similar to symbiosis physiology in adult corals.

SUBMITTER: Gaither MR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2880608 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Zooxanthellar symbiosis in planula larvae of the coral Pocillopora damicornis.

Gaither Michelle R MR Rowan Rob R

Journal of experimental marine biology and ecology 20100401 1-2

We characterized the planular-zooxanthellae symbiosis of the coral Pocillopora damicornis using criteria that are familiar in studies on corals. Similar to adult corals, planulae exhibited photoacclimation, as changes in symbiont chlorophyll a (chl a); changes in the light-saturation constant for photosynthesis (I(k)); and, at insufficient light, fewer zooxanthellae, decreased respiration, increased weight loss, and increased sensitivity to photoinhibition. Numbers of zooxanthellae in newly-rele ...[more]

PMID: 20526380

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Project description:BACKGROUND: Motivated by the precarious state of the world's coral reefs, there is currently a keen interest in coral transcriptomics. By identifying changes in coral gene expression that are triggered by particular environmental stressors, we can begin to characterize coral stress responses at the molecular level, which should lead to the development of more powerful diagnostic tools for evaluating the health of corals in the field. Furthermore, the identification of genetic variants that are more or less resilient in the face of particular stressors will help us to develop more reliable prognoses for particular coral populations. Toward this end, we performed deep mRNA sequencing of the cauliflower coral, Pocillopora damicornis, a geographically widespread Indo-Pacific species that exhibits a great diversity of colony forms and is able to thrive in habitats subject to a wide range of human impacts. Importantly, P. damicornis is particularly amenable to laboratory culture. We collected specimens from three geographically isolated Hawaiian populations subjected to qualitatively different levels of human impact. We isolated RNA from colony fragments ("nubbins") exposed to four environmental stressors (heat, desiccation, peroxide, and hypo-saline conditions) or control conditions. The RNA was pooled and sequenced using the 454 platform. DESCRIPTION: Both the raw reads (n=1, 116, 551) and the assembled contigs (n=70, 786; mean length=836 nucleotides) were deposited in a new publicly available relational database called PocilloporaBase http://www.PocilloporaBase.org. Using BLASTX, 47.2% of the contigs were found to match a sequence in the NCBI database at an E-value threshold of ?.001; 93.6% of those contigs with matches in the NCBI database appear to be of metazoan origin and 2.3% bacterial origin, while most of the remaining 4.1% match to other eukaryotes, including algae and amoebae. CONCLUSIONS: P. damicornis now joins the handful of coral species for which extensive transcriptomic data are publicly available. Through PocilloporaBase http://www.PocilloporaBase.org, one can obtain assembled contigs and raw reads and query the data according to a wide assortment of attributes including taxonomic origin, PFAM motif, KEGG pathway, and GO annotation.

Dataset Information

Zooxanthellar symbiosis in planula larvae of the coral Pocillopora damicornis.

Publications

Zooxanthellar symbiosis in planula larvae of the coral Pocillopora damicornis.

Similar Datasets

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