Data from: Comparative genomics of color morphs In the coral Montastraea cavernosa

Montastraea cavernosa is a common coral in the Caribbean basin found in
several color morphs. To investigate the causes for brown and orange
morphs we undertook a genomics approach on corals collected at the same
time and depth in the Bahamas. The coral holobiont includes the host,
symbiotic dinoflagellates (Symbiodinium spp.), and a diverse microbiome.
While the coral host showed significant genetic differentiation between
color morphs both the composition of the Symbiodinium spp. communities and
the prokaryotic communities did not. Both targeted and global gene
expression differences in the transcriptome of the host show no difference
in fluorescent proteins while the metatranscriptome of the microbiome
shows that pigments such as phycoerythrin and orange carotenoid protein of
cyanobacterial origin are significantly greater in orange morphs, which is
also consistent with the significantly greater number of cyanobacteria
quantified by 16S rRNA reads and flow cytometry. The microbiome of orange
color morphs expressed significantly more nitrogenase (nifH) transcripts
consistent with their known ability to fix nitrogen. Both coral and
Symbiodinium spp. transcriptomes from orange morphs had significantly
increased expression of genes related to immune response and apoptosis,
which may potentially be involved in maintaining and regulating the unique
symbiont population in orange morphs.