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The weight of it all: symbiotic dinoflagellates in Caribbean reef-building corals

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Abstract

The interaction of reef-building coral and symbiotic dinoflagellates (family: Symbiodiniaceae) is of critical importance to organismal performance and ecosystem functioning. A standard biometric commonly used to evaluate coral physiology and health status, is coral biomass. Within-colony Symbiodiniaceae assemblages typically range from 1 to 6 million cells cm−2; however, no direct measurements have quantified the overall biomass of these dense symbiont populations. We use direct gravimetric measurements to determine the mass of individual Symbiodiniaceae cells and investigate the ratio of symbiotic dinoflagellate biomass to coral holobiont biomass in five species of scleractinian corals: Acropora cervicornis, A. palmata, Orbicella annularis O. faveolata, and Siderastrea radians from the Florida Keys, FL, USA (25.119°N, 80.302°W). Genetic identification of symbiotic dinoflagellates revealed a single, dominant population of symbiotic dinoflagellates among each scleractinian species, suggesting that the corals did not change symbionts during this study. The overall contribution of the symbionts to holobiont biomass ranged from ~ 5 to 15%, and remained relatively constant throughout the winter and summer for all species with the exception of the Acroporids. This relatively small biomass of symbionts is in contrast to the millions of cells cm−2 which are present in these corals, and that enhance calcification, recycle nutrients, and supply nutrition to their reef-building hosts.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Julia Hagemeyer for help identifying Symbiodiniaceae for this study. We also would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for comments and suggestions that strengthened the manuscript. We would like to thank the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary for allowing us to conduct research on Florida Keys coral reef ecosystems.

Funding

DWK received support from start-up funds provided by University of Alabama at Birmingham.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Alabama Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, 35233, USA

    Dustin W. Kemp

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, 36849, USA

    Stephen C. Kempf

  3. Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602, USA

    William K. Fitt

Authors
  1. Dustin W. Kemp
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  2. Stephen C. Kempf
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  3. William K. Fitt
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Correspondence to Dustin W. Kemp.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Ethical approval

All corals were collected under permits issued by the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (#2011-093, 2014-117, 2016-082).

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Responsible Editor: S. Harii.

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Kemp, D.W., Kempf, S.C. & Fitt, W.K. The weight of it all: symbiotic dinoflagellates in Caribbean reef-building corals. Mar Biol 167, 121 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-020-03737-3

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