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Marine biology

Coral animals combat stress with sulphur

Nature volume 502, pages 634–635 (2013)Cite this article

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Photosynthetic algal symbionts of corals produce sulphur substances that are involved in the regulation of ocean temperatures. In a twist to the tale, it emerges that coral animals produce the same compounds. See Letter p.677

Coral reefs owe their success to a symbiosis between the animal host (the coral polyp) and intracellular photosynthetic dinoflagellate algae of the genus Symbiodinium, which supply up to 95% of the host's energy requirements. Symbiodinium produce abundant amounts of the sulphur compound dimethylsulphoniopropionate (DMSP) and the volatile trace sulphur gas dimethylsulphide (DMS)1,2,3 — substances that have been proposed4 to be involved in a climate-feedback cycle. On page 677 of this issue, Raina et al.5 use chemical, genomic and molecular approaches to reveal that coral polyps also produce DMSP, in the absence of their algal symbionts. This biosynthesis may help the corals to survive conditions of thermal stress, and it adds the coral polyp as a possible player in climate regulation in areas rich in reefsFootnote 1.

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Figure 1: Corals and DMSP.

Notes

  1. *This article and the paper under discussion5 were published online on 23 October 2013.

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  1. Graham Jones is in the Marine Ecology Research Centre, Southern Cross University, Lismore, New South Wales 2480, Australia.,

    Graham Jones

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Correspondence to Graham Jones.

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Jones, G. Coral animals combat stress with sulphur. Nature 502, 634–635 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12698

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