Biology subjects

Bellantuono, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Bellantuono, A..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Living in the City: Symbiont stability and bacterial compositional and functional plasticity in Miamis urban corals

Increasing urbanization and climate change pose significant threats to coral reefs, highlighting the need to understand the process underlying coral acclimatization in urban environments. Alterations in the microbiome composition represent a key mechanism by which corals adapt to varying environmental conditions. We compared endosymbionts and bacterial communities associated with Siderastrea siderea from urban and offshore Miami reef tracts across three seasons. We found two distinct genera of endosymbiotic Symbiodiniaceae algae, namely Cladocopium and Breviolum, consistently across sites and seasons, with Cladocopium predominating. The stable presence of these symbionts suggests host specificity in S. siderea and highlights the potential advantage of harboring multiple symbionts to enhance survival in diverse environments. In contrast, bacterial diversity exhibited variation across seasons and locations, with a small subset of microbes identified as a core microbiome demonstrating the remarkable plasticity of bacterial communities in response to environmental changes. Differential analysis revealed an increased abundance of Alteromonas and Synechococcus in urban corals, which may contribute to host nutrient acquisition, antibiotic production, and survival in polluted environments. Predicted functional profiles further demonstrated distinct metabolic reorganization of microbial communities between urban and offshore reefs, with urban corals enriched in pathways associated with stress response, pollutant degradation, and nutrient cycling. Together, these findings indicate that while algal symbionts remain stable, bacterial communities undergo both compositional and functional plasticity that likely supports coral persistence in highly urbanized environments.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Notes on the diet and size of Cassiopea

Medusae of the genus Cassiopea are common components of tropical and subtropical coastlines globally. Despite the broad distribution of this benthic scyphozoan, much about their ecology remains poorly described. Here, we collected over 100 adult Cassiopea individuals from Panama, the eastern United States, Cuba, the Philippines, Italy and Australia to examine continuity and differences in their diet across space, and to investigate whether their unique lifestyle is reflected in their diet. We found the majority of prey items to be associated with the epibenthos. The recovered prey were supermajority crustaceans, mainly harpacticoid copepods, with pteropods, nematodes, and miscellaneous eggs common as secondary components. Within the gastrovascular cavity of a single medusa, we found up to 379 items. There was a limited relationship between medusa size and prey items. Location had an impact on gut content diversity and medusa size had a small impact on the number of taxa found within the gut. In some sites, prey were scarce or absent from all medusae sampled. Overall, we reaffirm the diet previously recorded for small medusae in Puerto Rico and show that similar components are common in large and small medusae from throughout the East and West Atlantic and the Philippines.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

History of recurrent short and long-term coral bleaching events in Indian coral reefs: a a systematic review of contrasting bleaching patterns, lessons learned, and future directions

Climate change has intensified coral bleaching events, leading to widespread coral mortality and threatening the coral reef survival worldwide. However, species susceptibility patterns to bleaching differ spatially and temporally, making it crucial to understand bleaching impact and species susceptibility patterns across latitudinal ranges, particularly from understudied locations. We critically reviewed 23 years of bleaching episodes on Indian coral reefs (four major reefs and other patch reefs) reported from 1998 to 2020 to understand the geographical footprint of bleaching patterns, species susceptibility differences, and their impact. We found that all four major Indian reef systems (Gulf of Kachchh, Gulf of Mannar, Lakshadweep, and the Andaman Islands) have experienced three major bleaching episodes (1998, 2010, and 2016) and multiple short-term bleaching events. Short-term bleaching events (DHWs> four weeks) created differences in species susceptibility, but the disparity among species diminished to long-term bleaching events (DHWs <4 weeks) in all reef sites. Acropora, Porites, Pocillopora, Montipora, and Turninaria in the Gulf of Mannar, Porites, and Favia in the Gulf of Kachchh, and Acropora in the Andaman and Lakshadweep were the most vulnerable genera during all the bleaching events. In terms of recovery, Porites and other massive forms recovered better than branching forms. Furthermore, species susceptibility pattern analysis (winners vs. losers) to 2016 long-term bleaching events found conflicting results from studies (one-time surveys) in the same area. This result indicates that a one-time survey (survey timing) influences results as bleaching events lengthen, necessitating repeated surveys to determine winners and losers. Although inconsistent data from different study sites makes it difficult to create predictive models, data collected over the past 23 years provides critical insight into coral community susceptibility patterns and bleaching impacts, underscoring the need for systematic, uniform surveys in the future.

ecology↗