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The geochemical and biological study of corals
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A numerical model of coral symbiosis, photosynthesis, respiration and calcification processes
Monday 7th @ 1450-1510, Conference Room 4
Yi Xu* , State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research
Jing Zhang, State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research
Presenter Email: xuyi@sklec.ecnu.edu.cn
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| The coral-zooxanthellae symbiotic relationship, involving the recycling of nutrients and close coupling between different trophic levels, is an evolutionary success of coral reefs ecosystem. Understanding the dynamics of this symbiosis is essential to predict how corals respond to environmental stressors, such as changes in nutrients availability, water temperatures and irradiance. Given the ecological scale that the processes in coral ecosystem cover from molecular to ecosystem level, numerical modeling is an effective way to put the coral-reef system into a real environmental condition and evaluate its responses to environmental changes. A numerical model was developed to describe coral symbiosis and the system photosynthesis, respiration and calcification processes. The energy transfer between symbiotic algae and host animal was explored as well as the system physiology variability with respect to different nitrogen sources and under different light regimes.
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