Th, Th, U and U compositions of several deep-sea solitary corals, mainly the species Desmophyllum cristagalli, were determined by thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS). It is possible to obtain high precision ages on modern pristine corals that have low [Th] (5 to a few hundred ppt). However, because older deep-sea corals tend to have higher [Th] compared to surface corals, and the initia...

A new species of Heredius Marsh, 2002 is described from Brazil. H. flavus n. sp. differs from the other known Heredius species by its yellow mesosoma and metasoma, acinose-carinate face, acinose temple, malar space length about 0.56 times eye height, ocello-ocular distance about 4.0 times diameter of the lateral ocellus; acinose-rugose mesoscutal lobes, sternaulus finely scrobiculate and almost...

An extracellular exopolysaccharide (slime) is produced by Vibrio cholerae O139 MO10 in response to nutrient starvation. The presence of this slime layer on the cell surface and its subsequent release have been shown to be associated with biofilm formation and the change from a normal smooth colony morphology to a rugose one. An immunoelectron microscopic examination demonstrated that there is a...

Microbial communities associated with deep-sea corals are beginning to be studied in earnest and the contribution of the microbiome to host organismal function remains to be investigated. In this regard, the ability of the microbiome to adjust to prevailing environmental conditions might provide clues to its functional importance. In this study, we characterized bacterial community composition ...

The principal architects of coral reefs are the scleractinian corals; these species are divided in two major clades referred to as "robust" and "complex" corals. Although the molecular diversity of the "complex" clade has received considerable attention, with several expressed sequence tag (EST) libraries and a complete genome sequence having been constructed, the "robust" corals have received ...

coral is one of the richest ecosystems in the world and divided into two major groups. first group consist of soft corals living in tropical and semitropical oceans and seas. people in the past used these kinds of coral to make jewelry and decorative objects. second group contains hard coral which have been used as construction material in coastal zones. this paper presents the role of corals i...

Bacterial diseases affecting scleractinian corals pose an enormous threat to the health of coral reefs, yet we still have a limited understanding of the bacteria associated with coral diseases. White band disease is a bacterial disease that affects the two Caribbean acroporid corals, the staghorn coral Acropora cervicornis and the elkhorn coral A. palmate. Species of Vibrio and Rickettsia have ...

Many organisms exhibit depressed metabolism when resources are limited, a change that makes it possible to balance an energy budget. For symbiotic reef corals, daily cycles of light and periods of intense cloud cover can be chronic causes of food limitation through reduced photosynthesis. Furthermore, coral bleaching is common in present-day reefs, creating a context in which metabolic depressi...