[Coral-List] genetic connectivity of Symbiodinium individuals within a single colony

[Thomas Krueger]

Hi everyone,

thanks a lot for all the feedback and papers that were sent to me. It 
turns out I am dead wrong. There is indeed a lot of data that 
demonstrates that most colonies harbour only a single Symbiodinium genet 
(i.e. a clonal population of a single individual), which I find 
fascinating. It also means for those of you out there doing competition 
experiments in culture, make sure you have a monoclonal culture of your 
strain ;-). Otherwise your observed superior or inferior population 
performance over other strains (or cell lines of the same strain) could 
be simply the population outcome of a mixed genotype culture (i.e. 
multiple individuals). Here is some of the relevant literature I have 
received:

Goulet and Coffroth 2003, Genetic composition of zooxanthellae between 
and within colonies of the octocoral Plexaura kuna, based on small 
subunit rDNA and multilocus DNA fingerprinting. Marine Biology

Goulet and Coffroth 2003, Stability of an octocoral-algal symbiosis over 
time and space. Marine Ecology Progress Series

Parkinson et al. 2015, Intraspecific diversity among partners drives 
functional variation in coral symbioses. Scientific Reports

Parkinson and Baums 2014, The extended phenotypes of marine symbioses: 
ecological and evolutionary consequences of intraspecific genetic 
diversity in coral–algal associations. Frontiers in Microbiology 
*[Excellent review]*

Baums et al. 2014, New insights into the dynamics between reef corals 
and their associated dinoflagellate endosymbionts from population genetic 
studies. Molecular Ecology

Pettay et al. 2011, Genotypic diversity and spatial–temporal 
distribution of Symbiodinium clones in an abundant reef coral. Molecular 
Ecology

Thornhill et al. 2017 Population genetics of reef coral endosymbionts 
(Symbiodinium, Dinophyceae). Molecular Ecology

All the best,

Thomas

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*--*

*Thomas Krueger */Postdoctoral Researcher/

Laboratory for Biological Geochemistry | École polytechnique fédérale de 
Lausanne (EPFL)

*P*: (+41) 21 69 38039