1
Supporting information
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3
4
Table S1. Number of individual samples for each genus used in the study. Samples were collected
from habitats within the Lizard Island lagoon, Queensland, Australia.
Group
Corals
Chlorophyta
Phaeophyta
Genera
Acropora
Astreopora
Coeloseris
Coscinaraea
Diploastrea
Echinopora
Favia
Favites
Galaxea
Goniastrea
Goniopora
Halomitra
Hydnophora
Leptastrea
Lobophyllia
Merulina
Montipora
Pachyseris
Pavona
Pectinia
Plerogyra
Pocillopora
Porites
Seriatopora
Stylophora
Symphyllia
Turbinaria
Boodlea
Caulerpa
Chlorodesmis
Cladophora
Dictyosphaeria
Halimeda
Penicillus
Udotea
Valonia sp
Ventricaria
Dictyota
Feldmannia
Number of samples
30
3
2
2
5
5
12
5
6
15
6
1
3
2
5
2
5
3
3
2
2
10
24
6
13
4
6
9
13
16
1
2
23
3
3
1
4
14
2
1
Rhodophyta
Hydroclathrus
Lobophora
Padina
Sargassum
Turbinaria
Acanthophora
Dasya
Galaxaura
Gracilaria
Hypnea
Jania
Laurencia
Red Encrusting Coralline
Tolypiocladia
Red filamentous
7
8
20
3
6
9
2
3
1
4
6
9
2
6
2
5
6
2
7
8
9
10
11
Supporting information Figure S1. Frequency of sampling effort over depth for corals (panel A) and
macroalgae (panel B).
12
13
3
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
Supporting information Figure S2. Relationship between RNA and RNA:DNA ratio in higher plant
species. The line is of the Log RNA (µg g-1) = 1.926 + 1.131 x Log (RNA:DNA), R2 = 0.615, F1,11 = 17.5, P
= 0.0015. Data are sourced from Reef et al. 2010 (bark); Monselisa et al. 1961 (leaves); Close and
Beardle 2004 (leaves); Smillie and Krotkov 1960 (leaves and microalgae), Tal 1977 (leaves) and
Kessler et al. 1958 (leaves).
Close, D.C., Beadle, C.L. (2004) Total, and chemical fractions, of nitrogen and phosphorus in
Eucalyptus seedling leaves: effects of species, nursery fertiliser management and
transplanting. Plant and Soil 259, 85–95.
Kessler, B., Swirski E., Tahori, A.S (1958) Effect of caffeine and other purines upon the ribonucleic
acid ratio in leaves, and the suitability of these leaves for aphids. Nature 4823, 1595-1596.
Monselise SP, A. Cohen & B. Kessler (1961) Changes in ribonucleic acid & deoxyribonucleic acid in
developing orange leaves. Plant Physiology
Reef, R., Ball, M.C., Feller, I.C., Lovelock, C.E. (2010) Relationship between RNA : DNA ratio, growth
and elemental stoichiometry in mangrove trees. Functional Ecology 24, 1064–1072.
Smillie, R., Krotkov, G. (1960) The estimation of nucleic acids in some algae and higher plants.
Canadian Journal of Botany 38, 31–49.
Tal, M. (1977) Physiology of polyploid plants: DNA, RNA, protein, and abscisic acid in autotetraploid
and diploid tomato under low and high salinity. Botanical Gazette, 138, 119-122.
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36
37
38
39
Supporting information Figure S3. The relationship between lipids in coral genera (mg cm-2) and C:P
ratio. The line of best fit is of the form Y = 31.5 – 12.1 x log (C:P), R2 = 0.627, F1,5 = 8.41, P = 0.0338.
Lipid concentrations were sourced from Leuzinger et al. (2003).
40
41
42
5
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
Supporting information Figure S4. A. Variation in RNA:DNA ratio of macroalgal genera with genome
size of species within the same genera (1C values). There was no significant relationship (P > 0.05).
B. RNA:DNA of macroalgae adjusted for genome size (RNA:DNA/1C values) and plotted against
RNA:DNA. The relationship was significant (R2 = 0.542, P<0.0001), indicating that variation in genome
size cannot explain all the variation in RNA:DNA of macroalgae. Genome size was obtained from the
Plant DNA C-values Database (release 6.0, December 2012, MD Bennett and IJ Leitch). Points are
means for genera coloured to indicate phyla (Rhodophyta-red); Chlorophyta- green; Phaeophyta –
yellow).
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