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Symbiont-coral relationship in the main reef building scleractinians of the Central Mexican Pacific

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Abstract

Hermatypic corals maintain obligate symbiosis with symbiodiniacean dinoflagellates, forming either general or specific relationships with these microalgae. The differences in these associations can be attributed to local environmental conditions: different symbiont species are adapted to different ranges of environmental conditions, which directly influences the vitality of the mutualism in different environments. We identified the Symbiodiniaceae present in deep and shallow corals from the two most abundant reef-building coral genera in the Northeastern Tropical Pacific using two molecular markers, the complete ITS region and the chloroplast 23 S region. The molecular identification showed that Pocillopora corals harbor a symbiont belonging to the genus Durusdinium, while Pavona corals harbor Cladocopium sp. symbionts. No differences between deep and shallow coral colonies were observed, suggesting a stable association between coral and symbiont across the environmental gradient sampled. These unique associations appear to be thriving a region considered marginal for coral development and it appears that both kinds of symbionts endure a wide range of environmental conditions.

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Acknowledgements

The present study was funded by the National Geographic Society, grants NGS-55349R-19 to APRT and EC-51,496 C-18 to VMC, and by the project PROCER/CCER/DROPC/09/2016 to ALCM. While conducting the study and writing the manuscript, VMC received a Ph.D. scholarship from the Centro Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT; I.D. 332,939). The authors kindly thank Biol. Mariana Gudiño for her assistance in field and laboratory work and Ximena Zamacona and Rafael Rovirosa for their assistance in the edition process. Finally, we kindly thank Todd LaJeunesse for all the comments and suggestions that greatly improved our manuscript.

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  1. Laboratorio de Ecología Marina, Centro Universitario de la Costa, Universidad de Guadalajara, Av. Universidad #203, Delegación Ixtapa, Puerto Vallarta, C.P. 48280, Jalisco, México

    Violeta Martínez-Castillo, Alma Paola Rodríguez-Troncoso , Eric Bautista-Guerrero & Amílcar Leví Cupul-Magaña

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  1. Violeta Martínez-Castillo
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  2. Alma Paola Rodríguez-Troncoso
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  3. Eric Bautista-Guerrero
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All authors conceived and designed the research. VMC, APRT, and ALCM performed field.

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Correspondence to Alma Paola Rodríguez-Troncoso .

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Martínez-Castillo, V., Rodríguez-Troncoso , A.P., Bautista-Guerrero, E. et al. Symbiont-coral relationship in the main reef building scleractinians of the Central Mexican Pacific. Symbiosis 86, 315–323 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13199-022-00848-x

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