Symbiotic Relationship Between Symbiodinium Microadriaticum and Cnidaria (Coral)

Symbiodinium microadriaticum is an aquatic species of single-celled algal belong to dinoflagellate phylum and commonly known as zooxanthelae (Creative Commons-Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, 2011). It is known from the associations with cnidarians species as symbiotic relationship. Hosted by polyps coral, S. microadriaticum serves as sources of energy for coral and the coral provides nutrients and protection for the algae. This endosymbiosis is well known as coral reefs, since it is between algae and coral organisms. They have introduced a combination heterotrophic host and autotrophic symbiont into single functional units (Rowan, 1998). This mutual association was discovered really long time ago but there is still more to discover. It is important to study this symbiotic relationship to see the adaptations of the two organisms and the contribution of this association to the aquatic environment. The presence of the photosynthetic symbiont inside the cnidarians constraints the host to behave as a plant, living in shallow waters highly exposed to light, absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen (Dubinsky, 2011). The adaptations which are majorly important, allow for this association to occur such as the intracellular localization of zooxanthellae aids in the ion exchange since there is a very different concentration from the sea water, or the production of carbon dioxide supply for the photosynthesis of the host, and the shallow water environment where the host lives in, optimize the photosynthesis of symbionts (Dubinsky, 2011). A phenomenon known as coral bleaching has been studied found that it related to nitric oxide production in S. Microadriaticum at high temperature, even it is not in a symbiotic association with a coral host, but it serves as a signal for global warming (Bouchard and Yamasaki, 2008).

References:

Bouchard, J. N. and Yamasaki, H. 2008. Heat stress stimulates nitric oxide production in Symbiodinium microadriaticum: a...