Integral Light-Harvesting Complex Expression In Symbiodinium Within The Coral Acropora aspera Under Thermal Stress.

Coral reef success is largely dependent on the symbiosis between coral hosts and dinoflagellate symbionts belonging to the genus Symbiodinium. Elevated temperatures can result in the expulsion of Symbiodinium or loss of their photosynthetic pigments and is known as coral bleaching. It has been postulated that the expression of light-harvesting protein complexes (LHCs), which bind chlorophylls (chl) and carotenoids, are important in photobleaching.

Diversity of Marine-Derived Fungal Cultures Exposed by DNA Barcodes: The Algorithm Matters.

Marine fungi are an understudied group of eukaryotic microorganisms characterized by unresolved genealogies and unstable classification. Whereas DNA barcoding via the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) provides a robust and rapid tool for fungal species delineation, accurate classification of fungi is often arduous given the large number of partial or unknown barcodes and misidentified isolates deposited in public databases. This situation is perpetuated by a paucity of cultivable fungal strains available for phylogenetic research linked to these data sets.

Extraction protocol for nontargeted NMR and LC-MS metabolomics-based analysis of hard coral and their algal symbionts.

Metabolomics and in particular, nontargeted metabolomics, has become a popular technique for the study of biological samples as it provides considerable amounts of information on extractable metabolites and is ideal for studying the metabolic response of an organism to stressors in its environment. One such organism, the symbiotic hard coral, presents its own complexity when considering a metabolomics approach in that it forms intricate associations with an array of symbiotic macro- and microbiota. While not discounting the importance of these many associations to the function of the coral holobiont, the coral-Symbiodinium relationship has been the most studied to date and as such, is the primary focus of this extraction protocol.

Symbiodinium-invertebrate symbioses and the role of metabolomics.

Symbioses play an important role within the marine environment. Among the most well known of these symbioses is that between coral and the photosynthetic dinoflagellate, Symbiodinium spp. Understanding the metabolic relationships between the host and the symbiont is of the utmost importance in order to gain insight into how this symbiosis may be disrupted due to environmental stressors.