Symbiosis between

Zooxanthellae & Corals

By
Mark Mergler

What are Zooxanthellae?

Unicellular yellow-brown dinoflagellate algae
which live in the gastrodermis of corals
Provide corals with food in the form of
photosynthetic products
Live in corals tissues at a density of 1million
cells/cm
Due to need for light, they only live in ocean
waters <100 m
Recently found that there are 10 different
species that live in corals

http://www.seaslugforum.n
et/factsheet.cfm?
base=zoox1

http://plaza.ufl.edu/amb168
5/Coral_Reef.html

What are Corals?

Start their lives as free-swimming young
Once they find a hard bottom, they attach themselves
and quickly change into a polyp
Coral polyp splits in 2 and makes an identical copy of
itself
Form a colony and secrete a hard calcium carbonate
skeleton
Each polyp makes a small skeletal cup called a calyx
which aids in feeding
As coral colony grows, it secretes new skeletal material
on top of the old
Over thousands of years of accumulation, a coral reef is
formed

http://www.seasky.org/reeflife/sea2b.html

Symbiotic Relationship
between the Two
Zooxanthellae
Provide

Corals with food in the form of

organic matter

Corals
Provide

zooxanthellae a safe place to live

Excrement is taken in by dinoflagellates
and are recycled

Fringing Reefs
Simplest & most common type
Develop near shore throughout tropics
Occurring close to land makes them
vulnerable to sedimentation, freshwater
runoff, and human disturbance Consist of
An inner reef flat
An outer reef slope

http://plaza.ufl.edu/amb1685/Coral_Reef.html

Barrier Reefs
Much further from shore than
fringing reef
Consist of
A

back-reef slope
A reef flat
A fore-reef slope

Most coral growth occurs on the

fore-reef slope

http://plaza.ufl.edu/amb1685/Coral_Reef.html

Atoll
Ring of reef that form from sinking
volcanoes
Usually have a central lagoon
Can rise up from depths of thousands
of meters or more
Occur mostly in the Indo-west Pacific
region

http://plaza.ufl.edu/amb1685/Coral_Ree
f.html

Coral Bleaching
Occurs when corals undergo stressful situations
White calcium carbonate skeleton is exposed
when corals expel their zooxanthellae
Never a total elimination, (60-90%) remain
Is possible for corals to come back as long as a
substantial amount of time has not passed
Normal environmental conditions must return
If conditions do not return, host corals will perish

http://www.marinebiology.org/coralbleaching.htm

http://www.marinebiology.org/coralbleaching.htm

Climatic Change / Human

Impact
Climatic change

Increase in temperature
Violent weather
Increased UV exposure

Human impact

Oil pollution
Coral mining
Overfishing
Sedimentation
Nutrient enrichment

References
Brown, B. E. 1997. Disturbances to reefs in recent times. Pages 354-379 in Life and Death
of Coral Reefs, edited by C. Birkeland. Chapman & Hall, New York, NY.

Graham, Linda E., and Lee W. Wilcox. Algae. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000.

Hughes, Terry P. Climate Change, Human Impacts, and the Resilience of Coral Reefs
Science. 301.5635 (2003) 564-576.

Muller-Parker, G., and C. F. DElia. 1997. Interactions between corals and their symbiotic
algae. Pages 96-113 in Life and Death of Coral Reefs, edited by C. Birkeland. Chapman &
Hall, New York, NY.

West, Jordan M., and Rodney V. Salm. Resistance and Resilience to Coral Bleaching:
Implications for Coral Reef Conservation and Management. Conservation Biology. 17.4
(2003) 956-967.