Nitrogen cycling in corals: the key to understanding holobiont functioning?
Nils Rädecker, Claudia Pogoreutz, Christian R. Voolstra, Jörg Wiedenmann, Christian Wild
Trends in Microbiology, Vol. 23, Issue 8, p490–497
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2015.03.008
- Nitrogen cycling in reef-building corals is a function of all holobiont members.
- Control of nitrogen cycling may stabilize holobiont functioning under oligotrophic and eutrophic conditions.
- Anthropogenic change may sway the control of nitrogen cycling, promoting coral decline.
- Elevated nitrogen fixation rates may foster coral bleaching and disease.
Point for point comments:
- In aquariums this is what makes corals resilient to our manual attempts to re-create oligotrophic conditions in an overstocked tank.
- Witness the threads on paling corals and other issues. KNO3 dosing is often seen these days. Corals are apparently healthier when some NO3 is present.
- In the ocean, anthropogenic NO3 additions cause bad PO4 limiting among other things….corals and everything else tend to decline under PO4 starvation.
- There’s no free lunch…even within successful ecosystems, higher bio-loads come with a higher risk.
The rest of the article is a great read too….tons of more reading is linked within the article too.
Reef Success 