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Light-harvesting in mesophotic corals is powered by a spatially efficient photosymbiotic system between coral host and microalgae

View ORCID ProfileNetanel Kramer, View ORCID ProfileRaz Tamir, View ORCID ProfileOr Ben-Zvi, Steven L. Jacques, View ORCID ProfileYossi Loya, View ORCID ProfileDaniel Wangpraseurt
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.04.411496
Netanel Kramer
1School of Zoology, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
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  • For correspondence: nati.kramer@gmail.com
Raz Tamir
1School of Zoology, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
2The Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences of Eilat, Eilat 88103, Israel
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Or Ben-Zvi
1School of Zoology, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
2The Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences of Eilat, Eilat 88103, Israel
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Steven L. Jacques
3University of Washington, Seattle, USA
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Yossi Loya
1School of Zoology, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
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Daniel Wangpraseurt
4Department of Nanoengineering, University of California San Diego, San Diego, USA
5Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
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Summary

The coral-algal photosymbiosis fuels global coral-reef primary productivity, extending from sea level to as deep as 150 m (i.e., mesophotic). Currently, it is largely unknown how such mesophotic reefs thrive despite extremely limited light conditions. Here, we show that corals exhibit a plastic response to mesophotic conditions that involves a spatially optimized regulation of the bio-optical properties by coral host and symbiont. In contrast to shallow corals, mesophotic corals absorbed up to three-fold more light, resulting in excellent photosynthetic response under light conditions of only ~3% of the incident surface irradiance. The enhanced light harvesting capacity of mesophotic corals is regulated by average refractive index fluctuations in the coral skeleton that give rise to optical scattering and facilitate light transport and absorption by densely pigmented host tissue. The results of this study provide fundamental insight into the energy efficiency and light-harvesting mechanisms underlying the productivity of mesophotic coral reef ecosystems, yet also raise concerns regarding their ability to withstand prolonged environmental disturbances.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted December 06, 2020.
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Light-harvesting in mesophotic corals is powered by a spatially efficient photosymbiotic system between coral host and microalgae
Netanel Kramer, Raz Tamir, Or Ben-Zvi, Steven L. Jacques, Yossi Loya, Daniel Wangpraseurt
bioRxiv 2020.12.04.411496; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.04.411496
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Light-harvesting in mesophotic corals is powered by a spatially efficient photosymbiotic system between coral host and microalgae
Netanel Kramer, Raz Tamir, Or Ben-Zvi, Steven L. Jacques, Yossi Loya, Daniel Wangpraseurt
bioRxiv 2020.12.04.411496; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.04.411496

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