Corals hosting symbiotic hydrozoans are less susceptible to predation and disease.

ABSTRACT: In spite of growing evidence that climate change may dramatically affect networks of interacting species, whether-and to what extent-ecological interactions can mediate species' responses to disturbances is an open question. Here we show how a largely overseen association such as that between hydrozoans and scleractinian corals could be possibly associated with a reduction in coral susceptibility to ever-increasing predator and disease outbreaks. We examined 2455 scleractinian colonies (from both Maldivian and the Saudi Arabian coral reefs) searching for non-random patterns in the occurrence of hydrozoans on corals showing signs of different health conditions (i.e. bleaching, algal overgrowth, corallivory and different coral diseases). We show that, after accounting for geographical, ecolo

SUBMITTER: Montano S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5745423 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature