Help me, symbionts, you're my only hope: Approaches to accelerate our understanding of coral holobiont interactions

CB Bove, MV Ingersoll… - … and Comparative Biology, 2022 - academic.oup.com
Tropical corals construct the three-dimensional framework for one of the most diverse
ecosystems on the planet, providing habitat to a plethora of species across taxa. However …

Stony coral tissue loss disease induces transcriptional signatures of in situ degradation of dysfunctional Symbiodiniaceae

KM Beavers, EW Van Buren, AM Rossin… - Nature …, 2023 - nature.com
Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), one of the most pervasive and virulent coral
diseases on record, affects over 22 species of reef-building coral and is decimating reefs …

Integrating cryptic diversity into coral evolution, symbiosis and conservation

CGB Grupstra, M Gómez-Corrales, JE Fifer… - Nature Ecology & …, 2024 - nature.com
Understanding how diversity evolves and is maintained is critical to predicting the future
trajectories of ecosystems under climate change; however, our understanding of these …

Marine heatwaves threaten cryptic coral diversity and erode associations among coevolving partners

S Starko, JE Fifer, DC Claar, SW Davies, R Cunning… - Science …, 2023 - science.org
Climate change–amplified marine heatwaves can drive extensive mortality in foundation
species. However, a paucity of longitudinal genomic datasets has impeded understanding of …

Genetic divergence and range expansion in a western North Pacific coral

JE Fifer, N Yasuda, T Yamakita, CB Bove… - Science of the Total …, 2022 - Elsevier
Coral poleward range expansions have recently been observed in response to warming
oceans. Range expansion can lead to reduced genetic diversity and increased frequency of …

Cryptic diversity and spatial genetic variation in the coral Acropora tenuis and its endosymbionts across the Great Barrier Reef

AMA Matias, I Popovic, JA Thia, IR Cooke… - Evolutionary …, 2023 - Wiley Online Library
Genomic studies are uncovering extensive cryptic diversity within reef‐building corals,
suggesting that evolutionarily and ecologically relevant diversity is highly underestimated in …

Genomic data reveals habitat partitioning in massive Porites on Guam, Micronesia

KD Primov, DR Burdick, S Lemer, ZH Forsman… - Scientific Reports, 2024 - nature.com
Corals in marginal reef habitats generally exhibit less bleaching and associated mortality
compared to nearby corals in more pristine reef environments. It is unclear, however, if these …

Cryptic coral diversity is associated with symbioses, physiology, and response to thermal challenge

HE Aichelman, BE Benson, K Gomez-Campo… - Science …, 2025 - science.org
Coral persistence in the Anthropocene depends on interactions among holobiont partners
(coral animals and microbial symbionts) and their environment. Cryptic coral lineages …

Porites astreoides coral populations demonstrate high clonality and connectivity in southeast Florida

EN Shilling, RJ Eckert, AB Sturm, JD Voss - Coral Reefs, 2023 - Springer
Coral reefs in southeast Florida have experienced severe losses in coral cover and diversity
in recent decades, primarily due to disease outbreaks and bleaching events exacerbated by …

Alphaflexivirus genomes in stony coral tissue loss disease-affected, disease-exposed, and disease-unexposed coral colonies in the US Virgin Islands

AJ Veglia, K Beavers, EW Van Buren… - Microbiology …, 2022 - Am Soc Microbiol
Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) is decimating Caribbean corals. Here, through the
metatranscriptomic assembly and annotation of two alphaflexivirus-like strains, we provide …