R. Rowan et N. Knowlton, INTRASPECIFIC DIVERSITY AND ECOLOGICAL ZONATION IN CORAL ALGAL SYMBIOSIS, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Statesof America, 92(7), 1995, pp. 2850-2853
All reef-building corals are obligately associated with photosynthetic
microalgal endosymbionts called zooxanthellae. Zooxanthella taxonomy
has emphasized differences between species of hosts, but the possibili
ty of ecologically significant zooxanthella diversity within hosts has
been the subject of speculation for decades. Analysis of two dominant
Caribbean corals showed that each associates with three taxa of zooxa
nthellae that exhibit zonation with depth-the primary environmental gr
adient for light-dependent marine organisms. Some colonies apparently
host two taxa of symbionts in proportions that can vary across the col
ony. This common occurrence of polymorphic, habitat-specific symbioses
challenges conventional understanding of the units of biodiversity bu
t also illuminates many distinctive aspects of marine animal-algal ass
ociations. Habitat specificity provides ecological explanations for th
e previously documented poor concordance between host and symbiont phy
logenies and the otherwise surprising lack of direct, maternal transmi
ssion of symbionts in many species of hosts. Polymorphic symbioses may
underlie the conspicuous and enigmatic variability characteristic of
responses to environmental stress (e.g., coral ''bleaching'') and cont
ribute importantly to the phenomenon of photoadaptation.