Outbreaks of predatory crown-of-thorns seastars (COTS) can devastate coral reef ecosystems, yet some corals possess mutualistic guardian crabs that defend against COTS attacks. However, guarded corals do not always survive COTS outbreaks, with the ecological mechanisms sealing the fate of these corals during COTS infestations remaining unknown. In August 2008 in Moorea (17.539° S, 149.830° W), ...

Herbivory in corals, especially for symbiotic species, remains controversial. To investigate the capacity of scleractinian and soft corals to capture microalgae, we conducted controlled laboratory experiments offering five algal species: the cryptophyte Rhodomonas marina, the haptophytes Isochrysis galbana and Phaeocystis globosa, and the diatoms Conticribra weissflogii and Thalassiosira pseudo...

Losses of corals worldwide emphasize the need to understand what drives reef decline. Stressors such as overfishing and nutrient pollution may reduce resilience of coral reefs by increasing coral-algal competition and reducing coral recruitment, growth and survivorship. Such effects may themselves develop via several mechanisms, including disruption of coral microbiomes. Here we report the resu...

Coral reefs are in dramatic global decline due to a host of local- and global-scale anthropogenic disturbances that suppress corals and enhance seaweeds. This decline is exacerbated, and recovery made less likely, due to over-fishing of herbivores that normally limit seaweed effects on corals. Seaweeds were known to suppress coral reproduction and recruitment, but in a recent study, we demonstr...

A short-term, localized outbreak of diatoms attached to live corals was observed along the coast of Sesoko Island, Okinawa, Japan in February, 2011. Diatoms are recognized as brown patches in the initial stage, becoming fluffy encrustations and resulting in complete or partial coral death. Attached diatoms, including Licmophora, Climacosphenia, Ardissonea and others, attached and overgrew exclu...

Reef-building corals switch endosymbiotic algae of the genus Symbiodinium during their early growth stages and during bleaching events. Clade C Symbiodinium algae are dominant in corals, although other clades - including A and D - have also been commonly detected in juvenile Acroporid corals. Previous studies have been reported that only molecular data of Symbiodinium clade were identified with...

Seaweed-dominated coral reefs are becoming increasingly common as environmental conditions shift away from those required by corals and toward those ideal for rampant seaweed growth. How coral-associated organisms respond to seaweed will not only impact their fate following environmental change but potentially also the trajectories of the coral communities on which they rely. However, behaviora...

Mucus, a complex composed primarily of carbohydrates, is released in similar quantities by scleractinian warmand cold-water reef corals, and can function as an important carrier of organic material from corals to a range of consumers, microbes in particular. However, information about mucus chemical composition is rare for warm-water corals and non-existent for cold-water corals. This study the...

Predicting the percent live cover of corals: An in situ remote sensing approach" (2006). [1] Percent reflectance of corals is perhaps the most important remotely sensed data that can be related to their biophysical properties. Because most of the biophysical variables of corals (i.e., pigment content, live cover and algal overgrowth) are related to their reflectance spectra, the analysis and in...

Emerging diseases have been responsible for the death of about 30% of corals worldwide during the last 30 years. Coral biologists have predicted that by 2050 most of the world's coral reefs will be destroyed. This prediction is based on the assumption that corals can not adapt rapidly enough to environmental stress-related conditions and emerging diseases. Our recent studies of the Vibrio shilo...