Introduction
From shallow water to the deep sea, corals form the basis of diverse communities with significant ecological and economic value. These communities face many anthropogenic stressors including energy and mineral extraction activities, ocean acidification and rising sea temperatures. Corals and their symbionts produce a diverse assemblage of compounds that may help provide resilience to some of these stressors.
Objectives
We aim to characterize the metabolomic diversity of deep-sea corals in an ecological context by investigating patterns across space and phylogeny.
Methods
We applied untargeted Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry to examine the metabolomic diversity of the deep-sea coral,
Callogorgia delta
, across three sites in the Northern Gulf of Mexico as well as three other deep-sea corals,
Stichopathes
sp.,
Leiopathes glaberrima
, and
Lophelia pertusa
, and a shallow-water species,
Acropora palmata
.
Results
Different coral species exhibited distinct metabolomic fingerprints and differences in metabolomic richness including core ions unique to each species.
C. delta
was generally least diverse while
Lophelia pertusa
was most diverse.
C. delta
from different sites had different metabolomic fingerprints and metabolomic richness at individual and population levels, although no sites exhibited unique core ions. Two core ions unique to
C. delta
were putatively identified as diterpenes and thus may possess a biologically important function.
Conclusion
Deep-sea coral species have distinct metabolomic fingerprints and exhibit high metabolomic diversity at multiple scales which may contribute to their capabilities to respond to both natural and anthropogenic stressors, including climate change.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (10.1007/s11306-019-1500-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.