06 August, 2015
Coral communities in the Red Sea thrive under large fluctuations of environmental conditions. Two dominant corals from the central Red Sea, Pocillopora verrucosa and Porites lutea, revealed differences in their potential for niche acclimatization in relation to the fidelity of the underlying coral-symbiont association. We suggest that the scleractinian host either associates with a specific Symbiodinium type with a broad physiological tolerance, or the host-symbiont pairing is more flexible to accommodate for different symbiont associations, each adapted to specific environmental settings.