Corals have long been known to generate local fluid flows using ciliary beating, but the importance of these ciliary flows is just being discovered. Two new papers shed light on how ciliary-flow physics plays a key role in shaping coral physiology.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.08.049 | DOI Listing |
PLoS One
January 2025
Faculty of Science, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
Not all corals are attached to the substrate; some taxa are solitary and free-living, allowing them to migrate into preferred habitats. However, the lifestyle of these mobile corals, including how they move and navigate for migration, remains largely obscure. This study investigates the specific biomechanics of Cycloseris cyclolites, a free-living coral species, during phototactic behaviour in response to blue and white light stimuli.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
January 2025
Institute for Global Ecology, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida, United States of America.
Marine heatwaves are increasing in intensity and frequency however, responses and survival of reef corals vary geographically. Geographical differences in thermal tolerance may be in part a consequence of intraspecific diversity, where high-diversity localities are more likely to support heat-tolerant alleles that promote survival through thermal stress. Here, we assessed geographical patterns of intraspecific genetic diversity in the ubiquitous coral Pocillopora damicornis species complex using 428 sequences of the Internal Transcribed Spacer 2 (ITS2) region across 44 sites in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
January 2025
Department of Kinesiology and Sport Sciences, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, United States of America.
The KinaTrax markerless motion capture system, used extensively in the analysis of baseball pitching and hitting, is currently being adapted for use in clinical biomechanics. In clinical and laboratory environments, repeatability is inherent to the quality of any diagnostic tool. The KinaTrax system was assessed on within- and between-session reliability for gait kinematic and spatiotemporal parameters in healthy adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Microbiol
January 2025
Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Queensland, Australia.
Symbiotic cnidarians, such as sea anemones and corals, rely on their mutualistic microalgal partners (Symbiodiniaceae) for survival. Marine heatwaves can disrupt this partnership, and it has been proposed that introducing experimentally evolved, heat-tolerant algal symbionts could enhance host thermotolerance. To test this hypothesis, the sea anemone Exaiptasia diaphana (a coral model) was inoculated with either the heterologous wild type or heat-evolved algal symbiont, Cladocopium proliferum, and homologous wild-type Breviolum minutum.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Biol Sci
January 2025
Department of Biology, California State University Northridge, Northridge, CA, USA.
Coral reefs experience numerous environmental gradients affecting organismal physiology and species biodiversity, which ultimately impact community metabolism. This study shows that submarine groundwater discharge (SGD), a common natural environmental gradient in coastal ecosystems associated with decreasing temperatures, salinity and pH with increasing nutrients, has both direct and indirect effects on coral reef community metabolism by altering individual growth rates and community composition. Our data revealed that SGD exposure hindered the growth of two algae, and by 67 and 200%, respectively, and one coral, by 20%.
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