Journal article
Heat-Evolved Microalgae (Symbiodiniaceae) Are Stable Symbionts and Influence Thermal Tolerance of the Sea Anemone Exaiptasia diaphana
WY Chan, R Sakamoto, T Doering, VK Narayana, DP De Souza, MJ McConville, MJH van Oppen
Environmental Microbiology | Published : 2025
Abstract
Symbiotic cnidarians, such as sea anemones and corals, rely on their mutualistic microalgal partners (Symbiodiniaceae) for survival. Marine heatwaves can disrupt this partnership, and it has been proposed that introducing experimentally evolved, heat-tolerant algal symbionts could enhance host thermotolerance. To test this hypothesis, the sea anemone Exaiptasia diaphana (a coral model) was inoculated with either the heterologous wild type or heat-evolved algal symbiont, Cladocopium proliferum, and homologous wild-type Breviolum minutum. The novel symbioses persisted for 1.5 years and determined holobiont thermotolerance during a simulated summer heatwave. Anemones hosting SS8, one of the six..
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Grants
Awarded by University of Melbourne
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank S.J. Tsang Min Ching for anemone supply and DNA extraction, D. Rudd for sample freeze drying, S. Topa for sampling and library preparation and L. Meyers for sampling assistance. This study received funding from the ARC Laureate Fellowship (FL180100036) awarded to MvO. W.Y.C. acknowledges support from the ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE240100317) and the Westpac Research Fellowship. M.J.M. was supported by an NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship (APP1154540). Open access publishing facilitated by The University of Melbourne, as part of the Wiley - The University of Melbourne agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians.