Monitoring colony colour and zooxanthellae (<i>Symbiodinium</i>spp.) condition in the reef zoanthid<i>Palythoa tuberculosa</i>in Okinawa, Japan

Hibino, Yuya; Todd, Peter A.; Ashworth, Carey Denise; Obuchi, Masami; Reimer, James Davis

doi:10.1080/17451000.2013.766344

Cited by 16 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Sites at Convention Center and Sunabe are not located near rivers yet still exhibited some degree of nutrient input, which may imply terrestrial runoff (Table 2 and observed to have high P. tuberculosa coverage. Minatogawa and Teniya are close to river mouths (Table 2), and Odo has large amounts of freshwater runoff from small creeks (Sakai and Nishihira 1991;Hibino et al 2013). Rivers and terrestrial runoff both appear to cause extra nutrient input on Okinawa Island reefs; however, input fluctuates throughout the year (Meng et al 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The encrusting form of P. tuberculosa combined with up to 65% sand content (Haywick and Mueller 1997) makes it resistant to strong wave energy (Suchanek and Green 1981;Irei et al 2011). P. tuberculosa is an active planktonivore (Fabricius and Metzner 2004), also hosts a generalist Symbiodinium type (Reimer et al 2006;Hibino et al 2013), and during bleaching events can survive via heterotrophy (Reimer 1971a, b), which allows them to have low mortality during bleaching events (Jimenez 2001), unlike many other bleaching-susceptible anthozoans. Due to a lack of data on the abundance of P. tuberculosa, whether this species is naturally abundant or has recently increased in coverage due to induced over-growth by changing environmental conditions is unknown.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Palythoa zoanthid 'barrens’ in Okinawa: examination of possible environmental causes

et al. 2013

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Background: Coral reefs are among the most diversified ecosystems in the world, but suffer from anthropogenic and natural disturbances, often causing a shift from coral to algal (or other benthic groups) dominated ecosystems. Linking benthic communities' information with water quality data is urgently needed to understand current and future changes in benthic dominance. This research examined possible environmental causes on the abundance of the zoanthid Palythoa tuberculosa on Okinawa Island in southern Japan. Various water parameters (temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity, pH, particulate organic matter, chlorophyll a, NO 2 -N, NO 3 -N, PO 4 -P, NH 4 -N, and the distance to the river mouth) were recorded along with benthic community composition at eight locations. Results: Turf algae, coralline algae, or sand, rubble and rock dominated most locations in this survey. Coral coverage was moderate (10% to 40%). P. tuberculosa was generally low in abundance, but common at Mizugama (9% of the benthic community) and Oku (25%). Water parameters varied among sites. Salinity was the only parameter correlated with the abundance of Palythoa (R

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Palythoa zoanthid 'barrens’ in Okinawa: examination of possible environmental causes

et al. 2013

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“…In practice, observers compare the reference card and a host colony in situ, scoring colors on a saturation scale ranging from one to six ( Siebeck et al, 2006 ; Siebeck, Logan & Marshall, 2008 ). These scores correlate with chlorophyll a concentrations and Symbiodinium densities in hard corals ( Siebeck et al, 2006 ) and to some degree with the morphological condition of Symbiodinium in zoantharians ( Hibino et al, 2013 ). The method can scale to track colonies, species, or communities, and has been used to monitor reef symbiosis quality over time ( Cooper, Gilmour & Fabricius, 2009 ; Montano et al, 2010 ; Marshall, Kleine & Dean, 2012 ; Paley & Bay, 2012 ; Tanzil, 2012 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, many zoantharians incorporate calcareous sand into their bodies, potentially affecting color (e.g., West, 1979 ). However, in 2009 Hibino et al (2013) monitored 12 tagged colonies of P. tuberculosa monthly in Okinawa Island, Japan, and found that many colonies paled during periods of rapidly elevating sea surface temperature (e.g., from 21 °C to 25 °C in 3 weeks) and that colony color correlated with symbiont morphological condition. Thus, continued P. tuberculosa color observation at this location seems warranted, though in need of additional testing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A citizen science approach to monitoring bleaching in the zoantharianPalythoa tuberculosa

Parkinson

Yang

Kawamura

et al. 2016

PeerJ

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Coral reef bleaching events are expected to become more frequent and severe in the near future as climate changes. The zoantharian Palythoa tuberculosa bleaches earlier than many scleractinian corals and may serve as an indicator species. Basic monitoring of such species could help to detect and even anticipate bleaching events, especially in areas where more sophisticated approaches that rely on buoy or satellite measurements of sea surface temperature are unavailable or too coarse. One simple and inexpensive monitoring method involves training volunteers to record observations of host color as a proxy for symbiosis quality. Here, we trained university students to take the ‘color fingerprint’ of a reef by assessing the color of multiple randomly selected colonies of P. tuberculosa at one time point in Okinawa Island, Japan. We tested the reliability of the students’ color scores and whether they matched expectations based on previous monthly monitoring of tagged colonies at the same locations. We also measured three traditional metrics of symbiosis quality for comparison: symbiont morphological condition, cell density, and chlorophyll a content. We found that P. tuberculosa color score, although highly correlated among observers, provided little predictive power for the other variables. This was likely due to inherent variation in colony color among generally healthy zoantharians in midwinter, as well as low sample size and brief training owing to the course structure. Despite certain limitations of P. tuberculosa as a focal organism, the citizen science approach to color monitoring has promise, and we outline steps that could improve similar efforts in the future.

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“…However, photobiological adaptations of symbiotic zoantharians differently exposed to tides remain poorly explored. Few studies addressing the photobiological processes of zoantharians are available (Karlson 1988;Kemp et al 2006;Hibino et al 2013;Leal et al 2015a), and, to our best knowledge, the photosynthetic pigments of zoantharians have never been investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photobiology of the zoanthid Zoanthus sociatus in intertidal and subtidal habitats

Leal

Cruz

Mendes

et al. 2016

Mar. Freshwater Res.

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Intertidal environments are boundaries between marine and terrestrial ecosystems that are subject to rapid fluctuations across tidal cycles. This study investigates, for the first time, the photobiology of symbiotic zoanthids inhabiting different tidal environments: subtidal, intertidal pools and intertidal areas exposed to air during low tide. More specifically, we assessed the photochemical efficiency, Symbiodinium density and photosynthetic pigments profile of Zoanthus sociatus during low tide. Photochemical efficiency was lower and cell density higher in air exposed zoanthids. The profile of photosynthetic pigments also varied significantly among tidal habitats, particularly photoprotective pigments such as dinoxanthin and diadinoxanthin. Differences were also observed for the pigment content per cell, but the proportion of particular pigments (peridinin/chlorophyll-a and diatoxanthinþdiadinoxanthin/chlorophyll-a) remained stable. Results suggest that aerial exposure conditions induce reversible downregulation of photochemical processes but no photophysiological impairment or bleaching. These findings provide a baseline for future studies addressing the prevalence of these overlooked cnidarians in environmentally dynamic reef flats.

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Monitoring colony colour and zooxanthellae (Symbiodiniumspp.) condition in the reef zoanthidPalythoa tuberculosain Okinawa, Japan

Cited by 16 publications

References 31 publications

Palythoa zoanthid 'barrens’ in Okinawa: examination of possible environmental causes

Palythoa zoanthid 'barrens’ in Okinawa: examination of possible environmental causes

A citizen science approach to monitoring bleaching in the zoantharianPalythoa tuberculosa

Photobiology of the zoanthid Zoanthus sociatus in intertidal and subtidal habitats

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