%0 Journal Article
%T An updated assessment of Symbiodinium spp. that associate with common scleractinian corals from Moorea (French Polynesia) reveals high diversity among background symbionts and a novel finding of clade B
%A Denis Saulnier
%A Ga£¿l J. Lecellier
%A Herman H. Wirshing
%A H¨¦lo£¿se Rouz¨¦
%A Serge Planes
%A V¨¦ronique Berteaux-Lecellier
%A Yannick Gueguen
%J Archive of "PeerJ".
%D 2017
%R 10.7717/peerj.2856
%X The adaptative bleaching hypothesis (ABH) states that, depending on the symbiotic flexibility of coral hosts (i.e., the ability of corals to ¡°switch¡± or ¡°shuffle¡± their algal symbionts), coral bleaching can lead to a change in the composition of their associated Symbiodinium community and, thus, contribute to the coral¡¯s overall survival. In order to determine the flexibility of corals, molecular tools are required to provide accurate species delineations and to detect low levels of coral-associated Symbiodinium. Here, we used highly sensitive quantitative (real-time) PCR (qPCR) technology to analyse five common coral species from Moorea (French Polynesia), previously screened using only traditional molecular methods, to assess the presence of low-abundance (background) Symbiodinium spp. Similar to other studies, each coral species exhibited a strong specificity to a particular clade, irrespective of the environment. In addition, however, each of the five species harboured at least one additional Symbiodinium clade, among clades A¨CD, at background levels. Unexpectedly, and for the first time in French Polynesia, clade B was detected as a coral symbiont. These results increase the number of known coral-Symbiodinium associations from corals found in French Polynesia, and likely indicate an underestimation of the ability of the corals in this region to associate with and/or ¡°shuffle¡± different Symbiodinium clades. Altogether our data suggest that corals from French Polynesia may favor a trade-off between optimizing symbioses with a specific Symbiodinium clade(s), maintaining associations with particular background clades that may play a role in the ability of corals to respond to environmental change
%K Corals
%K French polynesia
%K Clade B
%K Symbiodinium
%K qPCR
%K Flexibility
%K Generalist
%K Faithful clade
%U https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5289445/