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Symbiodinium diversity in the soft coral Heteroxenia sp. and its nudibranch predator Phyllodesmium lizardensis

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Abstract

We examined the diversity of the photosynthetic dinoflagellate, Symbiodinium, over a 2-year period in two invertebrates from Australia’s Northern Great Barrier Reef: the nudibranch Phyllodesmium lizardensis and an octocoral of the genus Heteroxenia. In years one and two, we used denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis with internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) region amplicons and identified two nearly identical genotypes of clade C (C64 and a variant) in all samples of each species. We examined the secondary structure of both sequences and found that each had predicted ∆G values within the range of stable free energy values for Symbiodinium ITS2 sequences. In year two, we also used real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction assays (qPCR) with clade-specific internal transcribed spacer 1 primers to determine whether there were cryptic clades (A, B, and/or D) associated with either host in addition to clade C. qPCR revealed that clades B, C, and D were present in all animals of both species and that all but two nudibranch samples also harbored clade A. These findings suggest that there may be more flexibility in this host/symbiont interaction than has previously been assumed.

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Acknowledgments

We appreciate the BURR Culture Collection and the Lizard Island Research Station staff for their generous help. We would also like to recognize the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority for facilitating permit acquisition. Special thanks to Erin Crossey and Carmela Carrasco for technical support and Dr. David Hanson for his assistance in maintaining the algal cultures. This work was funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (ID0436605), a National Institutes for Health Post-Baccalaureate Research Education grant to KLL (R25GM075149), a UNM Research Allocations grant, and an anonymous donation to the University of New Mexico’s Department of Biology. Technical support for sequencing and qPCR was provided by the University of New Mexico’s Molecular Biology Facility, which is supported by National Institutes of Health grant 1P20RR18754 from the Institute Development Award Program of the National Center for Research Resources. We also thank three anonymous reviewers for their comments and constructive criticism, which have greatly improved this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, 167 Castetter Hall, MSC03-2020 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA

    S. K. FitzPatrick, K. L. Liberatore, J. R. Garcia, D. R. Colman, S. A. Moquin, C. D. Takacs-Vesbach & U. L. Shepherd

  2. University Honors Program, University of New Mexico, Student Health Center Building, MSCO6-3890 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA

    S. K. FitzPatrick, K. L. Liberatore, J. R. Garcia, S. A. Moquin & U. L. Shepherd

  3. Department of Animal Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity, Ruhr-University Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany

    I. Burghardt

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  1. S. K. FitzPatrick
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  3. J. R. Garcia
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  4. I. Burghardt
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Correspondence to U. L. Shepherd.

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Communicated by Biology Editor Dr. Ruth Gates

S. K. FitzPatrick and K. L. Liberatore contributed equally to the research performed here.

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FitzPatrick, S.K., Liberatore, K.L., Garcia, J.R. et al. Symbiodinium diversity in the soft coral Heteroxenia sp. and its nudibranch predator Phyllodesmium lizardensis . Coral Reefs 31, 895–905 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-012-0913-0

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