BACKGROUND Coral diseases are emerging as a serious threat to coral reefs worldwide. Of nine coral infectious diseases, whose pathogens have been characterized, six are caused by agents from the family Vibrionacae, raising questions as to their origin and role in coral disease aetiology. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Here we report on a Vibrio zinc-metalloprotease causing rapid photoinactiva...

Coral reefs are among themost diverse and productive ecosystems on our planet. Scleractinian corals function as the primary reef ecosystem engineers, constructing the framework that serves as a habitat for all other coral reefassociated organisms. However, the coral’s engineering role is particularly susceptible to global climate change. Ocean warming can cause extensive mass coral bleaching, w...

This work analyzes the mortality, recovery, and shifts in the composition of scleractinian corals from Puerto Rico one decade after the 2005 regional coral bleaching event. Temporal and spatial patterns of coral community structure were examined using a stratified, non-random sampling approach based on five permanent transects per reef at 16 reef stations. A negative correlation between percent...

Scleractinian corals are colonial organisms comprising multiple physiologically integrated polyps and branches. Colonialism in corals is highly beneficial, and allows a single colony to undergo several life processes at once through physiological integration and compartmentalised functioning. Elucidating differences in the biochemical composition of intra-colonial branch positions will provide ...

Scleractinian corals are the most basal eumetazoan taxon and provide the biological and physical framework for coral reefs, which are among the most diverse of all ecosystems. Over the past three decades and coincident with climate change, these phototrophic symbiotic organisms have been subject to increasingly frequent and severe diseases, which are now geographically widespread and a major th...

Over the past three decades, coral reefs worldwide have experienced significant losses in living coral cover and changes in the structure and function of these communities. Infectious diseases have been recognized as a prominent cause of mortality in scleractinian corals in the western Atlantic since the 1980’s, but until recently there were few reports of coral disease from the Indo-Pacific re...

Far more intimate knowledge of scleractinian coral biology is essential in order to understand how diverse coral-symbiont endosymbioses have been established. In particular, molecular and cellular mechanisms enabling the establishment and maintenance of obligate endosymbiosis with photosynthetic dinoflagellates require further clarification. By extension, such understanding may also shed light ...

Transcriptomic resources for coral species can provide insight into coral evolutionary history and stress-response physiology. Goniopora columna, Galaxea astreata, and Galaxea acrhelia are scleractinian corals of the Indo-Pacific, representing a diversity of morphologies and life-history traits. G. columna and G. astreata are common and cosmopolitan, while G. acrhelia is largely restricted to t...

— Highly modified habitats resulting from coastal development could facilitate the re-establishment of biological communities. At the Singapore Armed Forces Yacht Club in Changi, Singapore, the diversity and distribution of scleractinian corals were investigated using belt surveys at two different depths (1–3.5 m and 3.5–6 m) of a seawall. The 1,762 scleractinian colonies recorded are represent...

Most studies on sexual reproduction of scleractinian corals in Brazil have been concentrated in a single population or in a small area (Pires et al., 1999; Francini et al., 2002; Neves & Pires, 2002; Pires & Caparelli, 2002; Pires et al., 2002; Lins-de-Barros et al., 2003). The present paper presents a comparison of the sexual reproductive status of six populations of the Brazilian scleractinia...