Corals associate with a diverse community of prokaryotic symbionts that provide nutrition, antioxidants and other protective compounds to their host. However, the influence of microbes on coral thermotolerance remains understudied. Here, we examined the prokaryotic microbial communities associated with colonies of Acropora cf. tenuis that exhibit high or low thermotolerance upon exposure to 33°C (heated) relative to 29°C (cont...

Dinoflagellate endosymbionts from the family Symbiodiniaceae form a mutualistic relationship with corals. However, this partnership is vulnerable to temperature stress, which can result in coral bleaching. In this study, we sequenced the metatranscriptome of symbionts (dominated by ITS2 type C3u) associated with the common scleractinian coral, Acropora digitifera , from Bolinao, Pangasinan, northwestern Philippines, to elucida...

Coral reefs are diverse ecosystems of great ecological and economic importance. However, corals are vulnerable to a variety of stressors, including rising seawater temperatures, and yet little is known about the genetic mechanisms underlying their survival and adaptation to stress. Like other animals, corals possess genes for key members of the microRNA (miRNA) machinery. miRNAs are short RNAs that regulate diverse cellular pr...