- Title
- Microalgae, a boring bivalve and a voral - a newly described association between two coral reef bioeroders within their coral host
- Creator
- Fordyce, A. J.; Ainsworth, T. D.; Leggat, W.
- Relation
- Integrative Organismal Biology Vol. 2, Issue 1, no. obaa035
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/iob/obaa035
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- Bioeroding organisms play an important part in shaping structural complexity and carbonate budgets on coral reefs. Species interactions between various bioeroders are an important area of study, as these interactions can affect net rates of bioerosion within a community and mediate how bioeroders respond to environmental change. Here we test the hypothesis that the biomass of endolithic bioeroding microalgae is positively associated with the presence of a macroboring bivalve. We compared the biomass and chlorophyll concentrations of microendolithic biofilms in branches of the coral Isopora palifera (Lamarck, 1816) that were or were not inhabited by a macroboring bivalve. Those branches with a macroborer present hosted ∼80% higher microbial biomass compared to adjacent branches from the same coral with no macroborer. Increased concentrations of chlorophyll b indicated that this was partly due to a greater abundance of green microalgae. This newly described association has important implications for the coral host as both the bivalve and the microalgae have been hypothesized as symbiotic.
- Subject
- coral; bioeroders; microalgae; bivalve
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1475950
- Identifier
- uon:49702
- Identifier
- ISSN:2517-4843
- Rights
- © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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