Reef-building corals inhabit high light environments and are dependent on photosynthetic endosymbiotic dinoflagellates for nutrition. While photoacclimation responses of the dinoflagellates to changes in illumination are well understood, host photoacclimation strategies are poorly known. This study investigated fluorescent protein expression in the shallow-water coral Acropora yongei during a 3...

Coral diseases are a leading factor contributing to the global decline of coral reefs, and yet mechanisms of disease transmission remain poorly understood. This study tested whether zooplankton can act as a vector for white band disease (WBD) in Acropora cervicornis. Natural zooplankton communities were collected from a coral reef in Bocas del Toro, Panama. Half of the zooplankton were treated ...

Coral health indices are important components of the management assessments of coral reefs, providing insight into local variation in reef condition, as well as tools for comparisons between reefs and across various time scales. Understanding how such health indices vary in space and time is critical to their successful implementation as management tools. Here we compare autotrophic and heterot...

Members of the gammaproteobacterial genus Halomonas are common in marine environments. Halomonas and other members of the Oceanospirillales have recently been identified as prominent members of the surface microbiota of reef-building corals. Halomonas meridiana strain R1t3 was isolated from the surface mucus layer of the scleractinian coral Acropora palmata in 2005 from the Florida Keys. This s...

Coral reefs are suffering unprecedented declines in health state on a global scale. Some have suggested that human assisted evolution or gene flow may now be necessary to effectively restore and pre-condition them for future climate change. An understanding of the key metabolic processes corals, including under stressed conditions, would greatly facilitate effective application such interventio...

In situ growth rates of interstitial ciliates of a sandy hyporheic zone were determined by a modification of the dilution technique. Preconditioned sediment was used as a dilution substrate. Field incubation was conducted in the upper 3 cm sediment layer; samples were taken on 3 days (Days 0, 21 and 35) in October to November 2002. Mean growth rates varied between 0.070 d–1 (Pleuronema spp.) an...