The coral symbionts are reclassified into a family of genera
A systematic revision splits what had been treated as the single genus Symbiodinium, informally divided into clades A to I, into a family, Symbiodiniaceae, containing several genera — among them Cladocopium and the heat-tolerant Durusdinium. The revision matters beyond nomenclature: the lineages are separated by an evolutionary distance comparable to that between families of other organisms, so treating "zooxanthellae" as one interchangeable partner had been obscuring the very differences in thermal tolerance that determine whether a coral bleaches.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Zooxanthellae (Symbiodiniaceae) · species_group · Global tropical and subtropical shallow seas, inside host tissue · not located
- Symbiont shuffling and thermal tolerance · ecological phenomenon · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Systematic Revision of Symbiodiniaceae Highlights the Antiquity and Diversity of Coral Endosymbionts
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.
Current Biology (Cell Press), LaJeunesse and colleagues · 2018 · Partly verified
LaJeunesse, T.C. et al. (2018), Current Biology vol. 28 — the revision of Symbiodinium into the family Symbiodiniaceae.
Recorded on Zooxanthellae (Symbiodiniaceae)
- The first global mass bleaching event
- The coral symbionts are reclassified into a family of genera
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.