title: Temperature shapes coral-algal symbiosis in the South China Sea.
abstract: With the increase in sea surface temperature (SST), scleractinian corals are exposed to bleaching threats but may possess certain flexibilities in terms of their associations with symbiotic algae. Previous studies have shown a close symbiosis between coral the and Symbiodinium; however, the spatial variation of the symbiosis and the attribution underlying are not well understood. In the present study, we examined coral-algal symbiosis in Galaxea fascicularis and Montipora spp. from three biogeographic regions across ~10° of latitude in the South China Sea. Analysis of similarities (ANOSIM) indicated a highly flexible coral-algal symbiosis in both G. fascicularis and Montipora spp. and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) showed that temperature explained 83.2% and 60.1% of the explanatory subclade variations in G. fascicularis and Montipora spp., respectively, which suggested that temperature was the main environmental factor contributing to the diversity of Symbiodinium across the three regions. The geographic specificity of the Symbiodinium phylogeny was identified, revealing possible environmental selection across the three regions. These results suggest that scleractinian corals may have the ability to regulate Symbiodinium community structures under different temperatures and thus be able to adapt to gradual climate change.
authors.affiliation: HKUST Shenzhen Research Institute and Division of Life Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong SAR, China.
authors.forename: Haoya
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tong
authors.affiliation: HKUST Shenzhen Research Institute and Division of Life Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong SAR, China.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: HKUST Shenzhen Research Institute and Division of Life Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong SAR, China.|Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.|Tropical Marine Biological Research Station in Hainan, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.
authors.forename: Guowei
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: HKUST Shenzhen Research Institute and Division of Life Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong SAR, China.
authors.forename: Weipeng
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: HKUST Shenzhen Research Institute and Division of Life Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong SAR, China.
authors.forename: Renmao
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.|Tropical Marine Biological Research Station in Hainan, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: HKUST Shenzhen Research Institute and Division of Life Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong SAR, China.
authors.forename: Pei-Yuan
authors.initials: PY
authors.lastname: Qian