Widespread coral-algae symbioses endured historical climate changes
A community of Pocillopora corals on a reef in Palau with light micrograph insets of Cladocopium pacificum nov. (left) and Cladocopium latusorum sp. nov. (right), two dinoflagellate symbionts critical to these coral animals health and growth.
Image: Coral photo, Tom Bridge, James Cook University; algae photos, Kira Turnham, Penn State
Widespread coral-algae symbioses endured historical climate changes
May 24, 2021
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. One of the most important and widespread reef-building corals, known as cauliflower coral, exhibits strong partnerships with certain species of symbiotic algae, and these relationships have persisted through periods of intense climate fluctuations over the last 1.5 million years, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State. The findings suggest that these corals and their symbiotic algae may have the capacity to adjust to modern-day increases in ocean warming, at
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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. One of the most important and widespread reef-building corals, known as cauliflower coral, exhibits strong partnerships with certain species of symbiotic algae, and these relationships have persisted through periods of intense climate fluctuations over the last 1.5 million years, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State. The findings suggest that these corals and their symbiotic algae may have the capacity to adjust to modern-day increases in ocean warming, at least over the coming decades.
Cauliflower corals which are in the genus Pocillopora are branching corals that provide critical habitat for one-quarter of the world s fish and many kinds of invertebrates, such as lobsters, sea urchins and giant clams. They are common throughout the Indo-Pacific the region extending from eastern Africa, north to India and Southeast Asia, across Australia and encompassing Hawaii and are capable of long-range dispersal and rapid growth, ma