01 December, 2017
In our latest publication by Maren Ziegler et al. in the ISME journal we analyse 891 coral associated Symbiodinium communities to shed new light on the role of rare algal symbionts in the coral holobiont. Our analyses show that these symbionts show non-random clustering with other more abundant symbionts. Further, robustness analyses suggest that association with these rare symbionts may contribute to the stability of coral - algal assemblages, thereby playing an important role in the resilience of corals.