Coral reefs function in a symbiotic relationship with dinoflagellates (zooxanthellae). Continuous release of anthropogenic pollutants, mainly into the aquatic environments, and the resulting global climate change threatens coral health by endangering this symbiotic relationship. The object of this study is to measure the zooxanthellae density in PORITESCOMPRESSA to estimate health of coral reefs in the Northern part of Nay Band Bay in the vicinity of the South Pars Petrochemical facilities and southern part of Nay Band Bay farther away from these industrials. Corals in the north of Nay Band Bay showed more signs of degradation. The highest mean zooxanthellae density was 3607849±229894 N/cm2 in south of Nay Band Bay in February. Mean zooxanthellae density was significantly (p<0.05) higher in the south of Nay Bad Bay in February than other months, indicating healthier corals at this region.

The concentration contents of Ca, Mg, Sr and Zn in PORITES corals from Pulau Langkawi, Pulau Redang and Pulau Tioman were presented. The corals were cleaned and the growth rate examined visually. The growth rate of PORITES in Malaysia waters was between 5 to 25 mm yr-1 and each band was selected for determining the metal contents using the Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS). The mean values of Ca (42.1%), Mg (1184mg/g), Sr (6276mg/g) and Zn (60.6mg/g) were calculated from each annual skeleton band representing the yearly growth. PORITES coral from Pulau Langkawi shows a high content of Zn (118mg/g) representing the water surrounding the island was highly polluted and also shows the uptake of Sr and Ca in the coral skeleton was related to the content of Zn, where Sr and Ca contents decreases when the concentration of Zn was more than 50mg/g. Terrestrial runoff from Sumatera and west coast of Peninsular Malaysia are presumed to be the cause of pollution in Malacca Straits.

Since Salvia genus was used in ancient medicine and its applicationin culinary, flavor cosmetics, food and drinking industries is important, we investigated the composition of the essential oil of S. COMPRESSA. The aerial parts of this species were collected from Jahrom in Fars province at the altitude of 900 m and isolated by water distillation. Then the essential oil was analyzed by GC and GC/MS. Twenty-four compounds were identified in the essential oil of S. COMPRESSA and the major components were tau-cadinol (36%), caryophyllene oxide (15.7%), geraniol (10.5%) and borneol (9.3%).

Seaweeds have antioxidant properties. In this study, antioxidant activity of red algae Champia COMPRESSA organic extracts from Chabahar Bay was investigated. Extraction of the samples was done with a concentration of 1:20 (solvent to algae) by soaking the algae powder for 24 hours at ambient temperature. The solvents included methanol, hexane, dichloromethane and, chloroform at concentrations of 0.01, 0.1, 0.5 and 1, mg/mL. Extracts were subjected to the renowned antioxidant activity assay procedures of DPPH free radical scavenging activity, reduction power and, iron chelating. The minimum IC50 value of DPPH free radical scavenging activity of C. COMPRESSA algae was in the methanolic extract with a value of 1.05 mg/mL. The maximum value was calculated in dichloromethane extract. Also, chloroform solvent with IC50 of 2.64 had the highest chelation. Methanolic extract with IC50 of 0.68 mg/mL had the highest reducing activity. with the increase in the concentration of the extract, the amount of its antioxidant activity increased. So, inhibition of DPPH free radical, chelating power and, reducing activity at a concentration of 1 mg/mL of most extracts showed a significant difference compared to other concentrations (p<0.05). In conclusion, the methanolic and chloroform extracts of C. COMPRESSA red algae exhibited notable antioxidant properties. Further research for a complete investigation of the antioxidant properties of the C. COMPRESSA extracts is need.

Climate change due to global warming is one of the worst environmental disasters in the world, which affects all ecosystems and has led to increasing degradation of coral reefs. The increase of sea surface temperature is inversely related to the resistance of corals and is directly associated with their bleaching. High temperature disrupts the symbiotic relationship between coral and algal symbiont and results in coral bleaching. To evaluate the adaptation of corals to heat stress, in this study, we investigated the thermal stress effect on the expression of genes involved in programmed cell death (PCD), cysteinyl aspartate proteases 3 (will be mentioned as Caspas3 hereafter) and anti-apoptotic pathway, B-cell lymphoma 2 (will be mentioned as Bcl2 hereafter) in PORITES lobata (Dana, 1846). Corals were incubated at 25° C for 2 weeks (adaptation period) and then exposed to 34° C (heat shock) for 24 and 48 hours. Then, the expression of genes was measured using real-time PCR. The results revealed that both genes were up-regulated at 24 hours after heat induction. Bcl-2 expression (anti-apoptotic gene) was induced at 24 hours and was down-regulated at 48 hours. In contrast, Caspase3 (apoptotic gene) continued to be expressed up to 48 hours. These results might indicate that coral cells are headed towards bleaching and death with increased temperature. The results of this study, regarding the observed expression patterns, can clarify the response of different genes to a thermal stress in coral reefs. The exposure of corals to acute conditions with high temperatures presented the behavior of the desired genes in the studied conditions.

Aim and Background: Symbiodinium is a unicellular biflagellate alga that performs symbiosis with certain invertebrates. Different clades of Symbiodinium show variety of physiological features that could have uneven affect on the hermatypic corals stability and survival in various environmental conditions and geographical locations. In this study, Clades of symbiotic zooxanthellae of hermatypic corals of eastern Kish Island were compared to samples taken in 2007.Materials and Methods: Samples were taken at depth of 2 to 5 meters from 5 coral species including Acropora arabiensis, Platygyra daedalea, PORITES COMPRESSA, Acropora downingi and Psammacora contigua. Coral colonies were air brushed in order to separate Symbiodinium cells. DNA was extracted using CTAB-Chloroform method. LSU (Large Subunit Ribosomal DNA) region was used as target for amplification. Finally PCR products were sequenced.Results: Results did not show any difference between Corals’ symbionts and the study in the area during 2007. None of the studied coral species have switched or shuffled their symbionts populations.Conclusion: Taking into account inhospitable condition and shallowness of eastern parts of the Kish Island, presence of clade D might be an adaptive or acclimatized response due to dominant regional condition.