Coral's addiction to 'junk food'(nal Plant Cell and Environment. Cora...)

Coral symbiosis takes place mainly in clear, clean nutrient-poor waters where food is so scarce the corals need a partner to help feed them.

We know for example the corals provide carbon as CO2 which is processed by the algae to reprocess into carbohydrates and fats using energy from sunlight, so they can feed. Its a beautiful recycling process.

The corals control the diet of the algae, to ensure it produces what they need. You could say they farm the algae, much as we farm crops.

And the algae serve as the junk food chefs, providing the corals favourite food to order.

Researchers in the Centre of Excellence are trying to understand the chemical and genetic basis for the conversation that goes on between a coral and its particular algae, and to establish whether, if it loses its algae in a bleaching event, it can establish the same relationship with a different strain of algae.

In other words, how robust this symbiotic system is and whether it can withstand shocks from warming, ocean acidification, changes in sunlight levels and other likely impacts from human activity.

The bottom line here is the survival of the Great Barrier Reef and coral reefs the world over.

Five times in the Earths history corals have been wiped out, or very close to it, suggesting they are highly vulnerable to changes in ocean conditions, Prof. Yellowlees says. Some of these past events were probably triggered by past global warming and ocean acidification.

Some scientists have speculated whether corals in crisis can be given a helping hand by humans in the form of new symbiotic algae reared for the purpose but these are very hard to grow outside of their coral hosts, and Prof Yellowlees is doubtful this is a practical solution to major bleaching events affecting thousands of square kilometres of reef.

More likely, he feels, is that cryptic strains of algae which currentl
'/>"/>