Taxonomic assignment of algal endosymbionts from Amphistegina lobifera from the Red Sea. Foram endosymbionts

Specimens of the large benthic foraminifera A. lobifera were collected from about 3 m water depth in front of the Interuniversity Institute (IUI) for Marine Sciences in Eilat, Israel, and cultured for a few days (T0, 1, 2, 3, 4) or up to six months (sample ISAS2016) in the Marine Experimental Ecology (Maree) aquarium facility at the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) in Bremen, Germany. Sanger sequencing was applied to gain insights into the symbiont species composition. Amplification of a 442 bp fragment at the 3’ end of the 18S rDNA of Amphistegina photosymbionts was done using the 18S primers SymFS1 and 1528R. The resulting PCR products were directly sequenced.