Zooxanthellae (Symbiodiniaceae)

Assembled from 31 blocks · 2 evidence · 23 related

1. Story
2. Single-celled photosynthetic dinoflagellates living inside the gastrodermal cells of the coral host, at densities on the order of a million cells per square centimetre of tissue. They fix carbon and pass a large majority of it to the host as small organic compounds — glycerol, glucose, amino acids — which is what allows a large animal to live in tropical water so nutrient-poor that it is sometimes described as a marine desert. The commonly cited figure is that the symbionts can supply up to about ninety per cent of the host colony's energy requirement. They also supply the coral's colour: bleached coral is white because the host tissue is nearly transparent and the aragonite beneath it is not. Until 2018 the whole group was placed in one genus, Symbiodinium, and referred to by clade letters A to I; a systematic revision that year split it into a family with several genera, of which Cladocopium and the heat-tolerant Durusdinium are the ones that matter most on modern reefs.
3. Knowledge
4. Reef-building corals (Scleractinia)
5. Zooxanthellae (Symbiodiniaceae)
6. Coral calcification
7. Connections
8. Reef-building corals (Scleractinia)
9. Reef-building corals (Scleractinia)
10. Coral calcification
11. The first global mass bleaching event
12. The coral symbionts are reclassified into a family of genera
13. Marine heatwave
14. Zooxanthellae (Symbiodiniaceae)
15. Zooxanthellae (Symbiodiniaceae)
16. Coral bleaching
17. Crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster)
18. Elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata)
19. Darwin publishes The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs
20. The first global mass bleaching event
21. A published projection that reefs would bleach faster than they could recover
22. Mass bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef
23. The interval between severe bleaching events is measured, and it has collapsed
24. Zooxanthellae (Symbiodiniaceae)
25. Ocean acidification
26. Reef carbonate budget
27. Symbiont shuffling and thermal tolerance
28. A measured decline in Great Barrier Reef coral calcification is published
29. Evidence
30. Zooxanthellae translocate a large majority of fixed carbon to the coral host, which is what allows reef-building corals to thrive in nutrient-poor tropical water. V55 verification basis: not consulted in this session; the paper was identified and its central finding stated from the producing model's knowledge of the symbiosis literature. Page range not given rather than invented.
31. The coral endosymbionts formerly assigned to the single genus Symbiodinium and to clades A-I constitute a family of several genera, including Cladocopium and the thermally tolerant Durusdinium, separated by deep evolutionary distances. V55 verification basis: not consulted; the revision and the genus names are stated from the producing model's knowledge, and the family's estimated age of origin is not quoted precisely because it could not be checked.