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Coral symbiosis is a three-player game

DNA analysis and microscopy reveal a third organism in the symbiosis that forms coral. The finding underscores the functional and evolutionary complexity of the symbiotic relationships that support many ecosystems.
  1. Thomas A. Richards

    1. Thomas A. Richards is in Biosciences, Living Systems Institute, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QD, UK.

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  2. John P. McCutcheon

    1. John P. McCutcheon is in the Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana 59812, USA.

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Symbiosis is deceptively easy to define: two or more organisms live together in a long-term association. Coral, the partnership between an animal from the Anthozoa group and a microbial alga called Symbiodinium, is an archetypal model of symbiosis. The anthozoan provides a home for the alga, which uses photosynthesis to produce sugars that are given to the animal as ‘rent’1. These stable and highly productive two-player symbioses build the enormous reefs that shape marine ecosystems. Writing in Nature, Kwong et al.2 challenge this simple binary model of coral symbiosis by identifying a third player in the association.

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Nature 568, 41-42 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00949-6

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