Associations of corals and boring bivalves since the late cretaceous

Bivalve borings, bioclaustrations and symbiosis in corals from the Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian) of southern Israel

“…These traces are thus borings at their bases and bioclaustrations at the apertures as the corals grew around the bivalve incurrent and excurrent siphons. The multiple linings at the base of one chamber may have been formed as the bivalve moved upwards to keep pace with coral growth, similar to what has been shown for mytilid bivalves in living corals by Kleemann (1994).…”

“…Other clear examples of coral-bivalve symbiosis are known from the Upper Cretaceous, and it is "quite likely" that coral and mytilid bivalve living associations were present in the Jurassic and "probably since the Upper Triassic" (Kleemann, 1994, p. 131). The previously known fossil examples of symbiosis in the Late Cretaceous involve only massive and branching corals (Kleemann, 1994), so the occurrence described here is the first such symbiosis known from small platter-like corals.…”

“…Scleractinian corals and boring bivalves today have complex symbiotic relationships (Kleemann, 1980(Kleemann, , 1983(Kleemann, , 1994Morton, 1990). A critical question has been whether the origin of living relationships between corals and endolithic bivalves is relatively recent or has a long evolutionary history back into the Mesozoic (Morton, 1990).…”

Differentiating Parasitism and Other Interactions in Fossilized Colonial Organisms

“…However, the impact of macroborers on still-living colonial hosts is less clear and is potentially complex. While bored colonies may need to divert resources to strengthening and be otherwise disadvantaged, pointing to a parasitic relationship, Kleemann (1994) made the interesting suggestion for bivalves boring into scleractinian corals that after death the decaying tissues of the bivalve could provide an extra source of nutrition for the coral host.…”

The mushroom coral as a habitat

“…There appears to be little host-specificity among the mytilid species found, since some species also occur in corals belonging to other scleractinian families (Kleemann, 1980(Kleemann, , 1990(Kleemann, , 1994(Kleemann, , 1995Morton, 1990;Mokady et al, 1994). Only two species are known to live exclusively in mushroom corals, Fungiacava eilatensis and Leiosolenus punctatus .…”