A preliminary survey of zoantharian endosymbionts shows high genetic variation over small geographic scales on Okinawa-jima Island, Japan

Symbiotic dinoflagellates (genus Symbiodinium) shape the responses of their host reef organisms to environmental variability and climate change. To date, the biogeography of Symbiodinium has been investigated primarily through phylogenetic analyses of the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer 2 region. Although the marker can approximate species-level diversity, recent work has demonstrated that faster-evolving genes can resolve otherwise hidden species and population lineages, and that this diversity is often distributed over much finer geographical and environmental scales than previously recognized. Here, we use the noncoding region of the chloroplast psbA gene (psbA(ncr)) to examine genetic diversity among clade C Symbiodinium associating with the common reef zoantharian Palythoa tuberculosa on Okinawa-jima Island, Japan. We identify four closely related Symbiodinium psbA(ncr) lineages including one common generalist and two potential specialists that appear to be associated with particular microhabitats. The sea surface temperature differences that distinguish these habitats are smaller than those usually investigated, suggesting that future biogeographic surveys of Symbiodinium should incorporate fine scale environmental information as well as fine scale molecular data to accurately determine species diversity and their distributions.