Symbiont Shuffling Hypothesis, and the correlation Between Environmental Factors and Associated with symbiont composition (2023)

Undergraduate: Jianing Yang

Faculty Advisor: Stephanie Peak
Department: Earth, Marine, and Environmental Sciences

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Buddemeier and Fautin suggest the Adaptive Bleaching Hypothesis, stating that corals hold the plasticity in adapting to the thermally stressful environment by shuffling their symbiotic algae from non-heat tolerant algae clades to more heat tolerant algae clades and hence gaining heat toleration under heat stress environments. Since the first proposal of the theory in 1993, numerous lab and field studies were conducted, though the controversy remains. With no studies confirming whether corals have gained thermal tolerance after the shuffling process, studies point towards the lack of understanding of microbiological aspects of coral, as well as coral physiology and genetics. This poster summed up the current debate regarding Adaptive Bleaching Hypothesis and provides information on a meta-analysis of the coral Siderastrea siderea and its association with symbiont communities before and after bleaching events in both labs and field studies conducted in the past 20 years.

Link to Poster