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Reduced Symbiodiniaceae diversity in Palythoa tuberculosa at a heavily acidified coral reef

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Abstract

Symbiodiniaceae diversity in hosts is known to change with the environment and particularly with temperature and light intensity. However, higher levels of pCO2, as could be expected under future ocean acidification scenarios, have been documented to show little to no effect in influencing the diversity of Symbiodiniaceae in hosts in previous studies. In this study, we examined hypervariable psbAncr sequences to identify the Cladocopium (former Symbiodinium ‘Clade C’) diversity within the zooxanthellate zoantharian Palythoa tuberculosa at an acidified reef in southern Japan. Palythoa tuberculosa were collected from a reef at the volcanic island of Iwotorishima in southern Japan; specimens from a high pCO2 site and from a nearby control (normal pCO2) site (Inoue et al. in Nat Clim Change 3:683–687, 2013). We observed a statistically significant reduction in Cladocopium diversity at the high pCO2 site with only one Cladocopium lineage present, compared to at the control site with two lineages present. Our results demonstrate that higher pCO2 can potentially negatively influence the diversity of host Symbiodiniaceae within anthozoan hosts, an important implication in the face of ongoing ocean acidification and climate change.

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Acknowledgements

This research was conducted in collaboration with Dr. H. Kayanne, Dr. S. Yamamoto (both U. Tokyo), and Y. Ide (Oceanic Planning Corp.). This work was partially funded by JSPS Kakenhi-Kiban (A 16H01766) to HK, JSPS Kakenhi-Kiban B grant entitled ‘Global evolution of Brachycnemina and their Symbiodinium’ to JDR, and Sasagawa Research Foundation funding to BHW (29-751). Two anonymous reviewers’ comments improved an earlier version of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Engineering and Science, University of the Ryukyus, 1 Senbaru, Nishihara, Okinawa, 903-0213, Japan

    Hin Boo Wee, Haruko Kurihara & James Davis Reimer

  2. Tropical Biosphere Research Center, University of the Ryukyus, 1 Senbaru, Nishihara, Okinawa, 903-0213, Japan

    Haruko Kurihara & James Davis Reimer

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  1. Hin Boo Wee
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338_2019_1776_MOESM1_ESM.nexus

psbAncr forward sequences alignment of Cladocopium extracted from Palythoa tuberculosa found at Iwotorishima. 8 reference sequences (MF593405, MF593402, MF593407, MF593406, MF593415, MF593409, MF593427, MF593447) were added in the alignment to distinguish the lineages of Cladocopium in this study (n=10). File in nexus format (NEXUS 5 kb)

338_2019_1776_MOESM2_ESM.nex

psbAncr reverse sequences alignment of Cladocopium extracted from Palythoa tuberculosa found at Iwotorishima. File in nexus format (NEX 7 kb)

338_2019_1776_MOESM3_ESM.pdf

Genetic differences (GD) of Cladocopium extracted from P. tuberculosa found at Iwotorishima plotted on principal coordinate analysis. A) ITS2 (PCoA 100.00% coverage) and B) psbAncr (PCoA, 93.89% coverage), the symbols represent the sites of which the specimens were collected. The right labelled specimens represent the smaller Lineage 4 Cladocopium cluster found only at the control site. On the other hand, the top left labelled specimens (a: S17L08_Control; b: S13L08_Control) are specimens with small base-pair differences from the larger Lineage 1 Cladocopium cluster (bottom left, not labelled) (PDF 126 kb)

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Wee, H.B., Kurihara, H. & Reimer, J.D. Reduced Symbiodiniaceae diversity in Palythoa tuberculosa at a heavily acidified coral reef. Coral Reefs 38, 311–319 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-019-01776-x

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