皇家学会开放科学发表的一项研究发现,基于环境因素,蒙蒂普拉国会大厦与藻类共生体人口众多。夏威夷海洋生物学研究所和檀香山夏尼纳大学的科学家已经知道reef-building coralhosted a diversity of symbionts, but they wanted to test if the same coral hosted different species of zooxanthellae based on the light it received and importantly, the water temperatures it was exposed to. Six hundred M.capitata colonies were surveyed from 30 sites across a 10km stretch of Kane‘ohe Bay. Frags were taken from healthy colonies and DNA testing revealed a staggering 283 Symbiodiniacae types, 85% belonging to the genus Cladocopium, and 15% belonging to the genus Durusdinium.
Overall, 43% hosted Cladocopium only, 11% hosted Durusdinium only, and 46% hosted a combination of both genera. Of those mixed colonies, 32.5% were dominated by Cladocopium, while 37% of colonies were dominated by Durusdinium. Durusdinium was most prevalent in corals that were exposed to high temperatures in the center of the bay, whereas it was least prevalent in the same corals growing in the extreme North and South – the areas that were most affected by bleaching when water temperatures there became abnormally warm. Put two and two together and it appears thatMontipora capitatamay be more resilient to rising ocean temperatures based on the selection of Symbiodiniaceae type, and knowing that may help in the battle against climate change.
“This fine-scale variation in algal symbiont community composition across local environmental gradients suggests thatalgal symbiontcommunities can adaptively match the environmental conditions surrounding the holobiont,” the study concludes. “Symbiodiniaceae communities are attuned to fine-scale environmental gradients and that understanding these complex interactions across the heterogeneous mosaic of coral reef environments is needed to better predict spatial patterns in biological responses such as bleaching susceptibility.”