DinoSphere Seminar — Rocío Mozo on the Phylogenomics of Coral Photosymbionts

Our own Rocío Mozo will be presenting her work at the DinoSphere Seminar Series, a community seminar dedicated to dinoflagellate research.

Thursday, 16 April 2026 · 09:00 AM CEST
Join on Zoom

Phylogenomics of Coral Photosymbionts and their Free-Living Relatives

Photosynthetic dinoflagellates are globally important primary producers that have evolved to occupy a wide range of ecological niches. The dinoflagellate order Suessiales includes the family Symbiodiniaceae — commonly known as “zooxanthellae” — which form intracellular associations as photosymbionts with corals and other marine invertebrates or protist hosts.

While coral-zooxanthellae symbiosis has been extensively studied for its critical role in sustaining coral reef ecosystems, numerous Suessiales genera that exhibit transient or exclusively free-living lifestyles remain understudied. This leaves major gaps in our understanding of the ecological diversity and evolutionary history of the group. Adding to the challenge, the large and complex genomes of dinoflagellates have historically limited the availability of genomic data for Suessiales.

Rocío’s project tackles these knowledge gaps with two goals: (1) expand the currently limited genomic resources available for free-living Suessiales; and (2) reconstruct the evolutionary history of the group, resolving the relationships between photosymbiotic and free-living taxa.

To do so, she sequenced and assembled five de novo transcriptomes from free-living Suessiales species, then integrated them with publicly available genomes to infer a well-resolved phylogeny based on 212 protein-coding genes. The analyses clarify deep-branching relationships within Suessiales, strongly support the monophyly of Symbiodiniaceae, reveal the polyphyly of Suessiaceae, and indicate that symbiosis was acquired independently at least twice during Symbiodiniaceae evolution.

These results establish the first comprehensive phylogenomic framework for Suessiales — providing essential resources for future evolutionary, functional, and comparative studies on the transition towards symbiosis in dinoflagellates.

If you cannot attend live, the presentation will be recorded and made available on the DinoSphere YouTube channel. Feel free to share this with colleagues! 🎬