Patrick Buerger

Macquarie University

Understanding how pathogens maintain their virulence is critical to developing tools to mitigate disease in animal populations. We sequenced and assembled the first draft genome of Roseofilum reptotaenium AO1, the dominant cyanobacterium underlying pathogenicity of the virulent coral black band disease (BBD), and analyzed parts of the BBD-associate...

Black band disease (BBD) is a common disease of reef-building corals with a worldwide distribution that causes tissue loss at a rate of up to 3 cm/day. Critical for a mechanistic understanding of the disease's aetiology is the cultivation of its proposed pathogen, filamentous cyanobacteria (genus Roseofilum). Here, we optimise existing protocols fo...

Disease is an increasing threat to reef-building corals. One of the few identified pathogens of coral disease is the bacterium Vibrio coralliilyticus. In Vibrio cholerae, infection by a bacterial virus (bacteriophage) results in the conversion of non-pathogenic strains to pathogenic strains and this can lead to cholera pandemics. Pathogenicity isla...

Large-amplitude internal waves (LAIW) cause intense drops in sea water temperature (6–9 °C) and acidity (0.6 pH units) within minutes, posing a major disturbance factor for shallow water corals in the Andaman Sea. During periods of elevated temperatures, however, they may provide a vital source of relief to heat-stressed corals. To assess the effec...

Understanding the ecology and evolution of the cnidarian-algal symbiosis is of major scientific interest as it is sensitive to temperature and strong light and may therefore be susceptible to climate change. The stability of this mutualism is often mediated by host color pigments that influence photosynthetic activity in symbiotic dinoflagellates e...

The sea anemone, Exaiptasia diaphana , is a model of coral-dinoflagellate (Symbiodiniaceae) symbiosis. However, little is known of its potential to form symbiosis with Cladocopium —a key Indo-Pacific algal symbiont of scleractinian corals, nor the host nutritional consequences of such an association. Aposymbiotic anemones were inoculated with homol...

Corals″ tolerance to high temperature stress largely depends on their symbiotic microalgae (Symbiodiniaceae). However, the contributing microalgal traits are largely unclear. Here we compare the in vitro cellular profiles of seven Cladocopium C1acro microalgal strains (derived from the same ancestral strain) during a four-week exposure to 27°C or 3...

Heat-tolerant strains of the coral endosymbiont, Cladocopium C1 acro (Symbiodiniaceae), have previously been developed via experimental evolution. Here, we examine physiological responses and bacterial community composition (using 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding) in cultures of 10 heat-evolved (SS) and 9 wild-type (WT) strains, which had been exposed f...

The climate crisis is one of the most significant threats to marine ecosystems. It is leading to severe increases in sea surface temperatures and in the frequency and magnitude of marine heatwaves. These changing conditions are directly impacting coral reef ecosystems, which are among the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth. Coral-associated symbio...

Early life stages of most coral species acquire microalgal endosymbionts (Symbiodiniaceae) from the environment, but whether exogenous symbiont uptake is possible in the adult life stage is unclear. Deep sequencing of the Symbiodiniaceae ITS2 genetic marker has revealed novel symbionts in adult corals following bleaching; however these strains may...

Coral cover worldwide has been declining due to heat stress caused by climate change. Here we report the impacts of the 2015–2016 El Niño mass coral bleaching event on the coral cover of reefs located on central and northern atolls of the Maldives. We surveyed six reef sites in the Alifu Alifu (Ari) and Baa (South Maalhosmadulu) Atolls using replic...

Marine microalgae are a diverse group of microscopic eukaryotic and prokaryotic organisms capable of photosynthesis. They are important primary producers and carbon sinks but their physiology and persistence are severely affected by global climate change. Powerful experimental evolution technologies are being used to examine the potential of microa...

Coral reefs worldwide are suffering mass mortalities from marine heat waves. With the aim of enhancing coral bleaching tolerance, we evolved 10 clonal strains of a common coral microalgal endosymbiont at elevated temperatures (31°C) for 4 years in the laboratory. All 10 heat-evolved strains had expanded their thermal tolerance in vitro following la...

Small increases in ocean temperature can disrupt the obligate symbiosis between corals and dinoflagellate microalgae, resulting in coral bleaching. Little is known about the genes that drive the physiological and bleaching response of algal symbionts to elevated temperature. Moreover, many studies to‐date have compared highly divergent strains, mak...

A report provided to the Australian Government by the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program

Research into causative agents underlying coral disease have focused primarily on bacteria, whereas potential roles of viruses have been largely unaddressed. Bacteriophages may contribute to diseases through the lysogenic introduction of virulence genes into bacteria, or prevent diseases through lysis of bacterial pathogens. To identify candidate p...

Marine viruses are the largest, but most poorly explored genetic reservoir on the planet. They occur ubiquitously in the ocean at an average density of 5–15 × 106 viruses per mL of seawater, which represents abundances an order of magnitude higher than those of bacteria. While viruses are known agents of a number of diseases in the marine environme...

Here we describe an efficient and effective technique for rearing sexually-derived coral propagules from spawning through larval settlement and symbiont uptake with minimal impact on natural coral populations. We sought to maximize larval survival while minimizing expense and daily husbandry maintenance by experimentally determining optimized condi...

The coral-Symbiodinium association is a critical component of coral reefs as it is the main primary producer and builds the reef's 3-dimensional structure. A breakdown of this endosymbiosis causes a loss of the dinoflagellate photosymbiont, Symbiodinium, and/or its photosynthetic pigments from the coral tissues (i.e., coral bleaching), and can lead...