Computational Biology Approaches to Plant Metabolism and Photosynthesis: Applications for Corals in Times of Climate Change and Environmental Stress

Knowledge of factors that are important in reef resilience helps us to understand how reef ecosystems react following major an-thropogenic and environmental disturbances. The symbiotic rela-tionship between the photosynthetic zooxanthellae algal cells and corals is that the zooxanthellae provide the coral with carbon, while the coral provides protection and access to enough light for the zooxanthellae to photosynthesise. This article reviews some recent advances in computational biology relevant to photosynthetic or-ganisms, including Beyesian approaches to kinetics, computational methods for flux balances in metabolic processes, and determina-tion of clades of zooxanthallae. Application of these systems will be important in the conservation of coral reefs in times of climate change and environmental stress.