Coral Bleaching,

1
Coral Bleaching, Symbiotic Diversity, and
Implication for the Response to Global Warming
?Coral bleaching is becoming one of the major
threats to the tropical and subtropical coral
reef ecosystems under the impact of global
warming. Whether coral bleaching provides
reef-building corals to acclimatize to the global
warming by replacing its symbiotic partners,
Symbiodinium, remains unclear. ?We examined the
biogeographic distribution of a heat-tolerant
Symbiodinium D, and tested the hypothesis that
Symbiodinium D is absent in the high latitude due
to its thermal preferance. ? The results showed
that Symbiodinium D can associate stably with
coral, Oulastrea crispata, in the marginal reefs
of high-latitudinal Japan, suggesting that
Symbiodinium D has a broader capacity in dealing
with thermal stress. ? The capacity of
heat-tolerance and switching partners between
symbionts and coral hosts should be documented
with caution, and coral bleaching should still be
regarded as stress to corals.
2
(No Transcript)
3
(No Transcript)