Israel National Parks News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Symbiotic associations, widespread in terrestrial and marine ecosystems, are of considerable ecological importance. Many tropical coral species are holobionts, formed by the obligate association between a cnidarian host and endosymbiotic dinoflagellates of the family Symbiodiniaceae. The latter are abundant on coral reefs from very shallow water down to the upper mesophotic zone (30-70 meters). The research on scleractinians has revealed that the photosymbiont lineages present in the cnidarian host play an important role in the coral’s ability to thrive under different environmental conditions, such as light regime and temperature. However, little is known regarding octocoral photosymbionts, and in particular regarding those found deeper than 30 meters. Here, we used ribosomal (ITS2) and chloroplast (23S) markers to uncover, for the first time, the dominant Symbiodiniaceae taxa present in 19 mesophotic octocoral species (30-70 meters depth) from the Gulf of Aqaba/ Eilat (northern Red

Red seaDjibouti generalAnthe georgeSouth australiaUnited statesSaudi arabiaSouth china seaBrunei generalGreat barrier reefSaudi arabianTamar feldsteinSymbiodiniaceae lajeunesseSea poritesSymbiodinium symbiodiniaceaeSymbiodiniaceae dinophyceaePacific ocean