Table of Contents

• Coverage
• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
  • Data Processing Description
• Data Files
• Related Publications
• Parameters
• Instruments
• Deployments
• Project Information
• Funding

Symbiodinium cultures isolated from adult colonies of the octocoral Antillogorgia bipinnata in 2008, 2013 and 2016, grown at either 26 or 30 degrees C.

Cultures initially isolated from Antillogorgia bipinnata colonies collected in the lower keys in the vicinity of Looe Key (24 32.973'N 81 22.849'W) in 2008, the middle keys near Tennessee Reef (24 45.150'N  81 45.275'W) in 2013 and the upper keys at Pickles Reef (24 59.016'N 80 24.832'W) and Elbow Reef (25 07.956'N 80 15.810'W and 25 07.925'N 80 15.717'W).  Culture have been maintained in the Coffroth lab, University at Buffalo.

Symbionts were isolated from adult colonies of Antillogorgia bipinnata following the protocol outline in Santos et al 2001. Briefly, a small piece (1-2 cm) of the branch was ground in a glass tissue homogenizer with 2 ml of filtered seawater (FSW) and poured through a series of meshes (250 µm on top, then 120 µm, then 70 µm mesh) into a 15 ml tube.  The mesh was washed with 1 ml FSW several times for a final volume between 3 and 10 ml. This slurry was spun for 5 min at 500-800 rpm on a Beckman J6-HC centrifuge to pellet symbiont cells, the supernatant removed and resuspended in 10 ml of FSW.  This step was repeated again and then the pellet was resuspended in 1.0 ml of F/2 (Gulliard and Ryther 1962).  Cultures were started by using 20-50 µl of the resuspended pellets to inoculate 30ml of F/2 and incubated at the appropriate temperature.     

Clade identity and Cp-type were determined following the protocols outline in Santos et al (2003). Briefly, DNA was amplified using the primers HYPERUP and HYPERDN on and MJ96 or BioRad thermocyclers. PCR products were visualized and scored using size standards on a LI-COR 4200 NEN® Global IR2 DNA sequencing system as specified in Santos et al (2003). Putative species identity was based on sequence analysis of B7SYM15 flanking region (LaJeunesse et al. 2012, Parkinson et al. 2015).  Briefly, the B7SYM15 flanking region was amplified and directly sequenced in 5’ and 3’ directions on a 3730XL DNA Analyzer (High Throughput Genomics Center, University of Washington). Sequences were compared to known species within the GenBank database using BLAST- Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi). 

BCO-DMO processing:

• added conventional header with dataset name, PI name, version date
• modified parameter names to conform with BCO-DMO naming conventions
• converted latitude and longitude format from degrees, decimal minutes, hemisphere (DD MM.MMH) to decimal degrees (DD.DDDD).
• Adjusted the Incubation_Temperature values to remove the additional units from the values. (eg. 16_C converted to 16).

Description from NSF award abstract:
On coral reefs, mutualisms with single celled algae (Symbiodinium) and reef species literally and figuratively form the foundation of reef ecosystems. Coral reefs are among the most threatened ecosystems under a changing climate and are rapidly declining due to increasing levels of environmental stress, namely increased temperatures. Climate change is resulting in even warmer ocean temperatures that threaten associations between Symbiodinium and their hosts. In this project the investigators examine the genetic diversity of Symbiodinium and the potential for this important species to evolve in response to temperature. The project will also address whether the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of the Symbiodinium population affect the performance of their host. If so, this suggests that the evolution of microscopic organisms with short generation times could confer adaptation to longer-lived host species on ecologically and economically vital coral reefs. Given that diversity is already being lost on many reefs, considering how evolutionary changes in Symbiodinium will affect reef species is crucial for predicting the responses of reefs to future climate change. This project provides training for two graduate students and several undergraduates at a Hispanic-serving institution. This work includes outreach to the students and the general public through the Aquarium of Niagara, local K-12 schools, and web-based education modules.

The effects of evolution on contemporary ecological processes are at the forefront of research in evolutionary ecology. This project will answer the call for experiments elucidating the effects of genetic variation in Symbiodinium performance and the effect on the response of the holobiont (host and symbiont) to increased temperature. These experiments examine the effects of temperature through both ecological and evolutionary mechanisms and will determine the relative importance of adaptation and acclimatization in replicated experimental populations. The investigators will examine how genetic variation within a species (Symbiodinium antillogorgium) affects symbiont performance in culture and in the host and how this affects the response of the holobiont to increased temperature. Further, the project examines whether holobiont response to increased temperature associated with climate change depends on particular GxG host-symbiont combinations. Moreover, the investigators will examine the effects of symbiont history on mutualist hosts, which have been largely ignored in eco-evolutionary studies. These experiments provide a first step in predicting whether invertebrate hosts on coral reefs will respond to global change via adaptation of their symbionts.