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Abstract
Incidences of coral disease are increasing. Most studies which focus on diseases in these organisms routinely assess variations in bacterial associates. However, other microorganism groups such as viruses, fungi and protozoa are only recently starting to receive attention. This study aimed at assessing the diversity of ciliates associated with coral diseases over a wide geographical range. Here we show that a wide variety of ciliates are associated with all nine coral diseases assessed. Many of these ciliates such as Trochilia petrani and Glauconema trihymene feed on the bacteria which are likely colonizing the bare skeleton exposed by the advancing disease lesion or the necrotic tissue itself. Others such as Pseudokeronopsis and Licnophora macfarlandi are common predators of other protozoans and will be attracted by the increase in other ciliate species to the lesion interface. However, a few ciliate species (namely Varistrombidium kielum, Philaster lucinda, Philaster guamense, a Euplotes sp., a Trachelotractus sp. and a Condylostoma sp.) appear to harbor symbiotic algae, potentially from the coral themselves, a result which may indicate that they play some role in the disease pathology at the very least. Although, from this study alone we are not able to discern what roles any of these ciliates play in disease causation, the consistent presence of such communities with disease lesion interfaces warrants further investigation.Citation
Sweet, M, & Séré, M 2015, 'Ciliate communities consistently associated with coral diseases', Journal Of Sea Research, Vol. 113, pp. 119-131.Publisher
ElsevierJournal
Journal of Sea ResearchDOI
10.1016/j.seares.2015.06.008Additional Links
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1385110115300095Type
ArticleLanguage
enISSN
13851101ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.seares.2015.06.008