Ten <i>Ostreobium</i> (Ulvophyceae) strains from Great Barrier Reef corals as a resource for algal endolith biology and genomics

Ostreobium is a genus of siphonous green algae that lives as an endolith in carbonate substrates under extremely limited light conditions and has recently been gaining attention due to its roles reef budgets association with corals. Knowledge about this remains fairly the scarcity strains available for physiological studies. Here, we report on 10 isolated from coral skeletons Great Barrier Reef. Phenotypic diversity showed differences gross morphology few structures. Phylogenetic analyses tufA rbcL put context lineages identified previously through environmental sequencing. The chloroplast genomes our are all around 80 kbp length show genome structure highly conserved, only insertions (some containing putative protein-coding genes) differing between strains. addition these Reef toolkit will help develop model species endolithic growth, low-light photosynthesis coral-algal associations.