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Not-so-mutually Beneficial Coral Symbiosis

Overview
Journal Curr Biol
Publisher Cell Press
Specialty Biology
Date 2024 Sep 10
PMID 39255756
Authors
Affiliations
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Abstract

The partnership between corals and their intracellular algal symbionts has long been a textbook example of a mutually beneficial association. Here I argue that this view has been made obsolete by a steady accumulation of evidence over the past three decades. The coral-algal relationship is perhaps better viewed as one of domestication - think of it like a cattle farm, in which the coral is the farmer and the algae are the cows. I synthesize old and new evidence in support of this updated view and highlight remaining knowledge gaps, the largest of which continues to be the natural history of algal symbionts.

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