When corals meet algae: First stages of symbiosis seen for the first time

The physical interactions between coral and algal cells as they combine to form a symbiotic relationship have been observed for the first time. Within minutes of being introduced, coral cells had started to engulf the algae, where they were either digested or moved to a protective ‘bubble’ within the cell. This new study, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, will form the basis of further research to understand what drives their symbiosis at a cellular and molecular level, including the eviction of algae, which is the cause of coral bleaching.

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I wonder what rolls symbiosis had for early stages of all life?

> When corals meet algae: First stages of symbiosis seen for the first time

Nice work. Perhaps surprising that it hadn’t been done before. But then there’s a lot of obvious pure science that has never attracted funding.

Tau.Neutrino said:

I wonder what rolls symbiosis had for early stages of all life?

It was absolutely the key step for eukaryotes. We know how symbiosis of single celled animals and single celled cyanobacteria (algae) gave us plants. Symbiosis with other organisms gave us mirochondria, the retina (from red algae) and the separation of nucleus from cytoplasm. It also gave us sexual reproduction.

For earlier bacteria and archaea, it wasn’t so much symbiosis as merging multiple cells into a single cell by coalescence of membranes.

I have hopes that future lifeforms will take symbiosis to a new level, with thousands of different lifeforms merging into single superorganisms.