Ecology and Diversity of Zooxanthellae

[Andrew Baker]

Dear Coral Listers

There will be a mini-symposium on the "Biodiversity, Ecology and
Biogeography of Zooxanthellae in Coral-Algal Symbiosis", to be held at the
upcoming 9ICRS in Bali.

This session is designed to focus on how genetic/physiological differences
among symbionts can contribute to our biological understanding of reef
corals and other marine invertebrates. Some of the themes which will be
addressed include the following:

* Systematics, taxonomy and biodiversity of zooxanthellae (How many
different symbiont taxa exist? What are their distributions? How flexible
are their associations?)
* Physiological ecology of zooxanthellae (How do symbionts differ from one
another physiologically? Can this information be used to explain their
ecology/distributions/bleaching patterns on the reef?)
* The "adaptive bleaching" hypothesis (Can bleaching provide an opportunity
for corals to switch from one symbiont to another? Can bleaching patterns
be interpreted in the context of symbiont distributions?)
* Host-symbiont recombination as a means of adaptation/acclimatization (Can
corals repond to changing environments by swapping symbionts?)

We welcome papers addressing both the theoretical and experimental aspects
of these themes.

Further details on the session, and instructions for abstract submission,
can be found on the conference home page (http://www.nova.edu/ocean/9icrs/). 

If you are interested in presenting a paper at this mini-symposium, please
send an abstract to Andrew Baker <abaker at wcs.org> and/or Rob Rowan
<rrowan at uog9.uog.edu>, as well as to David Hopley, the Scientific Program
Chair (David.Hopley at ultra.net.au)

The deadline for abstract submission is 30 APRIL 2000.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Andrew C. Baker, Ph.D.
Research Ecologist
Wildlife Conservation Society
Founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological Society