In the warmer and brighter shallow waters of Kāne’ohe Bay, O’ahu, the Hawaiian rice coral (Montipora capitata) hosts more heat-tolerant symbiotic microalgae in their tissues compared to corals in deeper waters. This pattern was demonstrated in a recent study by scientists at the University of Hawai’i (UH) at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), and they suggest that while this can help corals weather a heat wave, it may have a price—lower nutrition when the heat wave has passed and seawater temperatures cool down.
Click here for original story, Corals’ partnership with microalgae helps in stressful times but there’s a trade-off
Source: Phys.org