Talk:Zooxanthella

reversion of assertion of mutation
I recently completed a course at Oberlin College on coral reefs which focused on their decline, the reasons for it, and what if anything to do about it. The professor, a published researcher who has been studying reef decline for decades, did not mention this effect on zooxanthellae. Assuming good faith on the part of the editor who added this effect, I searched JSTOR and Google Scholar for references to zooxanthellae mutation in reaction to exposure. I found no references to this effect in the published literature. If a citation can be found for this, I welcome its inclusion in the article.—WAvegetarian (talk) 19:00, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Fact Check Resolution
Monophyletic? -- Removed "fact check" and replaced with citation referencing this paragraph.

It is widely held that the genus Symbiodinium is monophyletic within the dinoflagellate radiation based on nuclear SSU rDNA phylogeny (Saunders et al. 1997; Saldarriaga et al. 2001). In the phylogenetic tree of nuclear SSU rDNA from wide-ranging species of dinoflagellates, the Symbiodinium strains maintained in our laboratory constituted a monophyletic group with other described strains of this genus, indicating that they are closely related to each other.--JimmyButler (talk) 01:31, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

zooxanthellae is not the same as Symbiodinium
Zooxanthellae is not synonymous with Symbiodinium. Symbiodinium is a monophyletic group of dinoflagellates. But zooxanthellae can refer to any brown (="xanth") symbiont in an animal. There are animals with diatom symbionts. Therefore Symbiodinium is a subset of a polyphyletic group, zooxanthellae. Since it is not monophyletic, the name "zooxanthella" can not be an accepted taxonomic group.

If this article is about the taxon, Symbiodinium, then that should be the title of the article. Zooxanthellae is a term that has fallen into disfavor among the people who study Symbiodinium because it is imprecise.

The page needs some work. I will try to make some edits as I find time. I'm mainly posting here to make sure I'm not stepping on anyone's toes by making a major revision. Let me know if you would like to discuss the matter first.

Please see these three great reviews about Symbiodinium, required reading in staying up-to-date on the group's biology: Flexibility and Specificity in Coral-Algal Symbiosis: Diversity, Ecology, and Biogeography of … AC Baker - Annual Reviews in Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 2003

Genetic Diversity of Symbiotic Dinoflagellates in the Genus Symbiodinium MA Coffroth, SR Santos - Protist, 2005

The evolutionary history of Symbiodinium and scleractinian hosts—Symbiosis, diversity, and the … M Stat, D Carter, O Hoegh-Guldberg - Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, 2006

Safay (talk) 08:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There are several different species of zooxanthellae, typically grouped together as the genus Symbiodinium'', which appears to be monophyletic.


 * This seems to be the offending line. Perhaps a simple restate will eliminate the misconception?


 * There are several different species of zooxanthellae, which includes any brown (="xanth") symbiont in an animal. Among them are representatives of the genus Symbiodinium'', which appears to be monophyletic].

Personally I would drop the entire monophyletic statement as being trivial at best and confusing at worse. Wikipedia is / should always be open to edits for improvement - even dramatic ones --- assuming you know what your talking about :) I'm not sure who wrote this originally; however, it is community property! Edit away.--JimmyButler (talk) 04:38, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Why are we excluding the common name algae from this section; it seems awfully unprofessional and not concise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.251.218.190 (talk) 01:41, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Bot-generated content
A computerised algorithm has generated a version of this page using data obtained from AlgaeBase. You may be able to incorporate elements into the current article. Alternatively, it may be appropriate to create a new page at Zooxanthella (alga). Anybot ( contact operator) 17:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Citation of the Wooldridge paper.
The suggestion that corals and other hosts parasitize Symbiodinium is supported by exactly one paper (Wooldridge 2010) that has been cited only once in the scientific literature according to Web of Science. This notion is not well supported. In fact the opposite notion, that Symbiodinium may parasitize their hosts, appears more commonly in a number scientific papers dating back to the work of Robert Trench from the 1970s (there is also work by Christian Voolostra, Michael Stat, Monica Medina, Scott Santos, Ruth Gates, and others). I think the needs to be edited out of the entry until such conjecture can be better confirmed.

The whole section on relationship should cite one of the excellent reviews on this topic - Trench 1992, Baker 2003, Coffroth and Santos 2005, etc. instead of the Wooldridge paper. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lab monkey77 (talk • contribs) 00:52, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It does look like the article may be relying too much on one source re this mutualism/parasitism question. Not sure Wooldridge's views should be edited out, but citing the reviews mentioned by Lab monkey 77 does sound like an excellent idea.


 * I've heard it said that the corals grow in a way that maximizes the exposure of their zooxanthellae to sunlight. This sounds like a very significant benefit to the zooxanths in the coral, distinct from the benefits already mentioned in the article such as nutrient provision and protection from predators. Does anyone know an RS on this point? If not I will try to find one myself. Kalidasa 777 (talk) 22:11, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

"90% of a coral’s energy requirements" is not correct
what the source actually says: "In fact, as much as 90 percent of the organic material photosynthetically produced by the zooxanthellae is transferred to the host coral tissue" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.63.184.238 (talk) 04:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Zooxanthellae and Symbiodinium
It seems like we need to make the relationship between Zooxanthellae and Symbiodinium clear. As a non-specialist, my understanding is that zooxanthellae is a functional description (any symbiont of coral), while Symbiodinium is the genus in which all exemplars reside. I am not sure if this is entirely correct, however. Perhaps an expert can weigh in and we can clarify the article accordingly. --TeaDrinker (talk) 19:18, 13 March 2012 (UTC)