Zac H. Forsman
Zoltan Szabo
Teresa D. Lewis
Greta S. Aeby
Robert J. Toonen
Thierry M. Work
2011
<p><i>Montipora</i><span> white syndrome (MWS) results in tissue-loss that is often lethal to </span><i>Montipora capitata</i><span>, a major reef building coral that is abundant and dominant in the Hawai'ian Archipelago. Within some MWS-affected colonies in Kane'ohe Bay, Oahu, Hawai'i, we saw unusual motile multicellular structures within gastrovascular canals (hereafter referred to as invasive gastrovascular multicellular structure-IGMS) that were associated with thinning and fragmentation of the basal body wall. IGMS were in significantly greater densities in coral fragments manifesting tissue-loss compared to paired normal fragments. Mesenterial filaments from these colonies yielded typical </span><i>M. capitata</i><span> mitochondrial haplotypes (CO1, CR), while IGMS from the same colony consistently yielded distinct haplotypes previously only found in a different </span><i>Montipora</i><span> species (</span><i>Montipora flabellata</i><span>). Protein profiles showed consistent differences between paired mesenterial filaments and IGMS from the same colonies as did seven microsatellite loci that also exhibited an excess of alleles per locus inconsistent with a single diploid organism. We hypothesize that IGMS are a parasitic cellular lineage resulting from the chimeric fusion between </span><i>M. capitata</i><span> and </span><i>M. flabellata</i><span> larvae followed by morphological reabsorption of </span><i>M. flabellata</i><span> and subsequent formation of cell-lineage parasites. We term this disease Montiporaiasis. Although intra-specific chimerism is common in colonial animals, this is the first suspected inter-specific example and the first associated with tissue loss.</span></p>
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10.1371/journal.pone.0022869
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Public Library of Science
Inter-specific coral chimerism: Genetically distinct multicellular structures associated with tissue loss in Montipora capitata
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