Lipids are a source of metabolic energy, as well as essential components of cellular membranes. Although they have been shown to be key players in the regulation of cell proliferation in various eukaryotes, including microalgae, their role in the cell cycle of cnidarian-dinoflagellate (genus Symbiodinium) endosymbioses remains to be elucidated. The present study examined the effects of a lipid ...

Traditional approaches for describing species of morphologically cryptic and often unculturable forms of endosymbiotic dinoflagellates are problematic. Two new species in the genus Symbiodinium Freudenthal 1962 are described using an integrative evolutionary genetics approach: Symbiodinium minutum sp. nov. are harbored by widespread tropical anemones in the genus Aiptasia; and Symbiodinium psyg...

The photobiology of two reef corals and the distribution of associated symbiont types were investigated over a depth gradient of 0-60 m at Scott Reef, Western Australia. Pachyseris speciosa hosted mainly the same Symbiodinium C type similar to C3 irrespective of sampling depth. By contrast, Seriatopora hystrix hosted predominantly Symbiodinium type D1a or D1a-like at shallow depths while those ...

Citation: Scheufen T, Iglesias-Prieto R and Enríquez S (2017) Changes in the Number of Symbionts and Symbiodinium Cell Pigmentation Modulate Differentially Coral Light Absorption and Photosynthetic Performance. Front. Mar. Sci. 4:309. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2017.00309 Changes in the Number of Symbionts and Symbiodinium Cell Pigmentation Modulate Differentially Coral Light Absorption and Photosynthe...

Symbiodinium are dinoflagellate photosynthetic algae that associate with a diverse array of marine invertebrates, and these relationships are comprehensively documented for adult animal hosts. Conversely, comparatively little is known about the associations during larval development of animal hosts, although four different metazoan phyla (Porifera, Cnidaria, Acoelomorpha, and Mollusca) produce ...

We examined a free-living Symbiodinium species by light and electron microscopy and nuclear-encoded partial LSU rDNA sequence data. The strain was isolated from a net plankton sample collected in near-shore waters at Tenerife, the Canary Islands. Comparing the thecal plate tabulation of the free-living Symbiodinium to that of S. microadriaticum Freud., it became clear that a few but significant...

Efforts to monitor coral reefs rarely combine ecological and genetic tools to provide insight into the processes driving patterns of change. We focused on a coral reef at 14 m depth in St. John, US Virgin Islands, and used both sets of tools to examine 12 colonies of Orbicella (formerly Montastraea) annularis in 2 photoquadrats that were monitored for 16 yr and sampled genetically at the start ...

The lipid body (LB) formation in the host coral gastrodermal cell cytoplasm is a hallmark of the coral-Symbiodinium endosymbiosis, and such lipid-based entities are not found in endosymbiont-free cnidarian cells. Therefore, the elucidation of lipogenesis regulation in LBs and how it is related to the lipid metabolism of the host and endosymbiont could provide direct insight to understand the sy...

Stable cnidarian-dinoflagellate (genus Symbiodinium) endosymbioses depend on the regulation of nutrient transport between Symbiodinium populations and their hosts. It has been previously shown that the host cytosol is a nitrogen-deficient environment for the intracellular Symbiodinium and may act to limit growth rates of symbionts during the symbiotic association. This study aimed to investigat...