Symbiodiniaceae diversity in massive corals from backreef lagoons in American Samoa

Investigation of community structure and photophysiology of coral-algal endosymbionts (Family Symbiodiniaceae) following transplantation into a highly variable thermal reef environment. Two coral host species (Porites lobata and Goniastrea retiformis) were transplanted from two nearby backreef lagoons into the highly variable lagoon for one year, and at six and twelve months, acute heat stress experiments were conducted to elucidate thermal tolerances of the coral host and algal symbiont. DNA was extracted and symbiont specific ITS2 amplicons were amplified prior to high-throughput sequencing on Illumina's MiSeq platform.