Coral microbial ecology under the microscope

Abstract

Increasing episodes of mass coral bleaching and a growing number of reports of coral disease epizootics have led to an expanding research field investigating the microbial ecology of reef building corals. Corals reside in a complex ecosystem and form intimate symbiotic relationships with eukaryotic dinoflagellates (commonly called zooxanthellae), which have been well studied. Less understood is the complex interactions that corals form with Bacteria, Archaea and viruses, all of which play an important functional role in coral health. Understanding how the coral animal and its symbiotic partners (eukaryotic, bacterial, archeal and viral) are influenced by environmental perturbations such as global climate change, rising sea surface temperatures and increasing anthropogenic inputs into the ecosystem such as nutrients, is the driving factor behind this expanding microbial discipline.