Symbiodinium biogeography tracks environmental patterns rather than host genetics in a key Caribbean reef-builder, Orbicella annularis.

ABSTRACT: The physiological performance of a reef-building coral is a combined outcome of both the coral host and its algal endosymbionts, Symbiodinium While Orbicella annularis-a dominant reef-building coral in the Wider Caribbean-is known to be a flexible host in terms of the diversity of Symbiodinium types it can associate with, it is uncertain how this diversity varies across the Caribbean, and whether spatial variability in the symbiont community is related to either O. annularis genotype or environment. Here, we target the Symbiodinium-ITS2 gene to characterize and map dominant Symbiodinium hosted by O. annularis at an unprecedented spatial scale. We reveal northwest-southeast partitioning across the Caribbean, both in terms of the dominant symbiont taxa hosted and in assemblage diversity. Mul

SUBMITTER: Kennedy EV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5124097 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature