Heterotrophic feeding as a newly identified survival strategy

[nck1992]

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2...ract?sid=447cec24-cdfd-4b20-b76c-739c7c161ef2

Heterotrophic feeding as a newly identified survival strategy of the dinoflagellate Symbiodinium


"Our discovery of Symbiodinium's feeding alters our conventional views of the survival strategies of photosynthetic Symbiodinium and corals."

 

[OneReef]

I glanced thru the article. What does it mean in laymans terms? Lol

 

[nck1992]

They showed that Zooxanthellae can eat cyanobacteria etc and is not solely dependent on photosynthesis. So, they claimed that feeding may be helpful to maintain natural Zooxanthellae population and coral reef.

As a hobbyist, what about a reef tank????

 

[OneReef]

Feeding your coral may help? That's novel... Lol

 

[nck1992]

Actually they are talking about free living Zooxanthellae, eating behavior of the free living zooxanthellae, feeding free living zooxanthellae. The free living Zooxanthellae cannot grow in nitrogen-deficient condition (typical coral reef). How can they grow in the coral reef? The answer is "By eating something". That's novel but looks not important for the hobbyist.

 

[OneReef]

I told you that I didn't understand any of it... Ha.