Coral Lipids, Its Character and Role

Abstract

Corals having unicellular algae (zooxanthellae) grow faster with the aid of symbiotic zooxanthellae living within their animal cells. Wax esters and triacylglycerol function as a storage lipids in coral. Roughly coral soft tissues contain 30% lipids in dried weight. Recent higher water temperature due to global warming causes loss of symbiotic algae from the host coral (we call as coral bleaching), and then coral itself consume storage lipids. Similarly, loss of storage lipids has been observed in diseased (skeletal anomalies, or tumor) coral tissue. These suggest that storage lipids have an important role to regulate coral homeostasis and assume environment condition of coral reefs.