Chapter 14 The Coral Holobiont

These notes serve as bookmarks for further exploration and meant to serve as a document to concentrate the diagrams I’ve found to be most helpful in understanding this relationship.

The coral holobiont is mutualistic and symbiotic relationship between a coral host, endosymbiont dinoflagellate, and both intra- and extra-cellular microbiome communities. All three partners play a role in the overall health, phenotype, and tolerance of the organism (Dittami et al 2021).
- Symbiodiniaceae provides coral with glucose, glycerol, and amino acids.
- Coral provides a protected environment and limiting compounds like nitrogen species

Symbiodiniaceae and coral host relationship

Cunning et al 2017 describes the bioenergetic model of the coral and endosymbiont:

model

The Coral host and Microbiome

Top vs. Bottom control: Thompson et al 2015

topbottom

All three partners relationship

Nutrients and carbon exchange (La Barre 2013):

d

Chevrette et al 2016:

Peixoto et al 2017:

Environmental Perturbations

A healthy coral holobiont through a bleached coral holobiont (Morrow, Muller, Lesser 2018):

dia

Location of the microbiome

Ricci et al 2019 describes the coral skeleton microbiome:

mi

Tranmission Modes

Described in van Oppen and Blackall 2019:

vh