Syndiniales & Corallicolids

• The international team of researchers collected samples of corals from across the Mediterranean Sea and analysed the bacteria that live with the corals.
• The researchers found that the presence of a group of parasitic single-celled organisms called Syndiniales made it more likely that a coral could survive heat stress.

The presence of Corallicolids, a group of single-celled organism related to the parasite that causes malaria, was more common in corals that die from heat stress.