Abstract
<jats:p>Coral reefs are increasingly threatened by disease outbreaks, which affect the coral animal and/or its algal symbionts (<jats:italic><jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">S</jats:styled-content>ymbiodinium</jats:italic> spp.) and can cause mass mortalities. Currently around half of the recognized coral diseases have unknown causative agents. While many of the diseases are thought to be bacterial in origin, there is growing evidence that viruses may play a role. In particular, it appears that viruses may infect the algal symbionts, causing breakdown of the coral‐algal mutualism. In this study, we screened a wide range of <jats:italic><jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">S</jats:styled-content>ymbiodinium</jats:italic> cultures in vitro for the presence of latent viral infections. Using flow cytometry and electron microscopy, we found that many types of <jats:italic><jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">S</jats:styled-content>ymbiodinium</jats:italic> apparently harbor such infections, and that the type of putative virus varied within and among host types. Furthermore, the putative viral infections could be induced via abiotic stress and cause host cell lysis and population decline. If similar processes occur in <jats:italic><jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">S</jats:styled-content>ymbiodinium</jats:italic> cells <jats:italic>in hospite</jats:italic>, they may provide an explanation for some of the diseases affecting corals and other organisms forming symbioses with these algae.</jats:p>
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 984-997 |
Number of pages | 0 |
Journal | Journal of Phycology |
Volume | 50 |
Issue number | 6 |
Early online date | 3 Nov 2014 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2014 |