Symbiotic Invertebrates in Coral Reef Communities

Dear Colleagues,

Inhabitants of communities associated with the environment-forming scleractinians and octocorals are astonishingly unique.  Yet, despite significant research efforts over the last century to study the world’s oceans, species composition and relationships among the inhabitants of these communities remain poorly understood. Most of the interspecific relationships of animals living in shallow and deep-sea coral communities are based on various and often puzzling symbiotic interactions (broadly considered commensal, mutualistic and parasitic) between two or more animal species living on corals themselves or other inhabitants (sponges, sea anemones, polychaetes, crustaceans, echinoderms, ascidians, fish).  The disproportionate number of studies of different taxa of associated symbiotic invertebrates should also be noted.  Some of these taxa (such as microscopic copepod crustaceans living on corals and other invertebrates) have received less attention, despite their species richness, due simply to their tiny size, and the difficulty of sampling and studying them.  Research on the biodiversity and ecology of the inhabitants of coral communities that form symbiotic and hypersymbiotic complexes has become increasingly relevant over the last several decades.  This research is critical to better understanding the changes and sustainability of the Anthropocene’s natural and artificial coral communities.

This Special Issue of Diversity will publish research papers on the diversity, morphology, distribution, development, phylogeny and ecology of symbiotic invertebrates living on corals, other invertebrates and the fish of coral communities.  We aim to highlight the different kinds of studies on coral communities. We invite researchers to submit not only original papers and reports detailing interesting findings, but also reviews on various related topics. Our hope is that these contributions will help improve the current understanding of the diversity, biology and role of symbiotic invertebrates in coral communities.

Dr. Viatcheslav Ivanenko
Dr. Temir A. Britayev
Dr. Maria Schreider
Guest Editors

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