Climate change disables coral bleaching protection on the Great Barrier Reef

Ainsworth, Tracy D.; Heron, Scott F.; Ortíz, Juan Carlos; Mumby, Peter J.; Grech, Alana; Ogawa, Daisie R.; Eakin, C. Mark; Leggat, William

doi:10.1126/science.aac7125

Cited by 385 publications

(367 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…This increases population fitness in the short term, but may decrease it in the long term. Such a situation may be observed on the Great Barrier Reef when protective pulses of short-term, warm water occur before bleaching events (Ainsworth et al, 2016).…”

Section: Evolution In the Face Of Environmental Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanisms of Thermal Tolerance in Reef-Building Corals across a Fine-Grained Environmental Mosaic: Lessons from Ofu, American Samoa

et al. 2018

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Environmental heterogeneity gives rise to phenotypic variation through a combination of phenotypic plasticity and fixed genetic effects. For reef-building corals, understanding the relative roles of acclimatization and adaptation in generating thermal tolerance is fundamental to predicting the response of coral populations to future climate change. The temperature mosaic in the lagoon of Ofu, American Samoa, represents an ideal natural laboratory for studying thermal tolerance in corals. Two adjacent back-reef pools approximately 500 m apart have different temperature profiles: the highly variable (HV) pool experiences temperatures that range from 24.5 to 35 • C, whereas the moderately variable (MV) pool ranges from 25 to 32 • C. Standardized heat stress tests have shown that corals native to the HV pool have consistently higher levels of bleaching resistance than those in the MV pool. In this review, we summarize research into the mechanisms underlying this variation in bleaching resistance, focusing on the important reef-building genus Acropora. Both acclimatization and adaptation occur strongly and define thermal tolerance differences between pools. Most individual corals shift physiology to become more heat resistant when moved into the warmer pool. Lab based tests show that these shifts begin in as little as a week and are equally sparked by exposure to periodic high temperatures as constant high temperatures. Transcriptome-wide data on gene expression show that a wide variety of genes are co-regulated in expression modules that change expression after experimental heat stress, after acclimatization, and even after short term environmental fluctuations. Population genetic scans show associations between a corals' thermal environment and its alleles at 100s to 1000s of nuclear genes and no single gene confers strong environmental effects within or between species. Symbionts also tend to differ between pools and species, and the thermal tolerance of a coral is a reflection of individual host genotype and specific symbiont types. We conclude the review by placing this work in the context of parallel research going on in other species, reefs, and ecosystems around the world and into the broader framework of reef coral resilience in the face of climate change.

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Section: Evolution In the Face Of Environmental Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanisms of Thermal Tolerance in Reef-Building Corals across a Fine-Grained Environmental Mosaic: Lessons from Ofu, American Samoa

et al. 2018

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“…On the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), mean summer maximum temperatures have been reported to have nearly 2 • C difference at reefs 250 km apart (South Molle Island to Magnetic Island; Howells et al, 2013). Different thermal histories on the GBR have been found to influence bleaching susceptibility (Ulstrup et al, 2006;Ainsworth et al, 2016) and the physiological performance of a generalist coral symbiont (Howells et al, 2012). Warmer latitudes have also been shown to enhance heritable thermal tolerance, up to 10-fold in Acropora millepora from the GBR (Dixon et al, 2015).…”

Section: Broad Temperature Gradientsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Future of Coral Reefs Subject to Rapid Climate Change: Lessons from Natural Extreme Environments

et al. 2018

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Global climate change and localized anthropogenic stressors are driving rapid declines in coral reef health. In vitro experiments have been fundamental in providing insight into how reef organisms will potentially respond to future climates. However, such experiments are inevitably limited in their ability to reproduce the complex interactions that govern reef systems. Studies examining coral communities that already persist under naturally-occurring extreme and marginal physicochemical conditions have therefore become increasingly popular to advance ecosystem scale predictions of future reef form and function, although no single site provides a perfect analog to future reefs. Here we review the current state of knowledge that exists on the distribution of corals in marginal and extreme environments, and geographic sites at the latitudinal extremes of reef growth, as well as a variety of shallow reef systems and reef-neighboring environments (including upwelling and CO 2 vent sites). We also conduct a synthesis of the abiotic data that have been collected at these systems, to provide the first collective assessment on the range of extreme conditions under which corals currently persist. We use the review and data synthesis to increase our understanding of the biological and ecological mechanisms that facilitate survival and success under sub-optimal physicochemical conditions. This comprehensive assessment can begin to: (i) highlight the extent of extreme abiotic scenarios under which corals can persist, (ii) explore whether there are commonalities in coral taxa able to persist in such extremes, (iii) provide evidence for key mechanisms required to support survival and/or persistence under sub-optimal environmental conditions, and (iv) evaluate the potential of current sub-optimal coral environments to act as potential refugia under changing environmental conditions. Such a collective approach is critical to better understand the future survival of corals in our changing environment. We finally outline priority areas for future research on extreme and marginal coral environments, and discuss the additional management options they may provide for corals through refuge or by providing genetic stocks of stress tolerant corals to support proactive management strategies.

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“…It has been shown that corals transplanted into warmer waters are able to better respond to acute heat stress than colonies that remain in cooler waters (Palumbi et al, 2014). Indeed, pre-exposure to a mild thermal stress is likely to initiate an acclimation mechanism protecting corals from bleaching in several recent heat stress events (Ainsworth et al, 2016). Despite this ecological and physiological evidence for acclimation, little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying this type of response.…”

Section: Acclimations By Epigenetic Modifications In Cnidariamentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Nematostella vectensis to Study the Interactions between Genome, Epigenome, and Bacteria in a Changing Environment

2016

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The phenotype of an animal cannot be explained entirely by its genes. It is now clear that factors other than the genome contribute to the ecology and evolution of animals. Two fundamentally important factors are the associated microbiota and epigenetic regulations. Unlike the genes and regulatory regions of the genome, epigenetics and microbial composition can be rapidly modified, and may thus represent mechanisms for rapid acclimation to a changing environment. At present, the individual functions of epigenetics, microbiomes, and genomic mutations are largely studied in isolation, particularly for species in marine ecosystems. This single variable approach leaves significant questions open for how these mechanisms intersect in the acclimation and adaptation of organisms in different environments. Here, we propose that the starlet sea anemone, Nematostella vectensis, is a model of choice to investigate the complex interplay between adaptation as well as physiological and molecular plasticity in coastal ecosystems. N. vectensis' geographic range spans four distinct coastlines, including a wide thermocline along the Atlantic coast of North America. N. vectensis is a particularly powerful invertebrate model for studying genome-environment interactions due to (1) the availability of a well-annotated genome, including preexisting data on genome methylation, histone modifications and miRNAs, (2) an extensive molecular toolkit including well-developed protocols for gene suppression and transgenesis, and (3) the simplicity of culture and experimentation in the laboratory. Taken together, N. vectensis has the tractability to connect the functional relationships between a host animal, microbes, and genome modifications to determine mechanisms underlying phenotypic plasticity and local adaptation.

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Climate change disables coral bleaching protection on the Great Barrier Reef

Cited by 385 publications

References 22 publications

Mechanisms of Thermal Tolerance in Reef-Building Corals across a Fine-Grained Environmental Mosaic: Lessons from Ofu, American Samoa

Mechanisms of Thermal Tolerance in Reef-Building Corals across a Fine-Grained Environmental Mosaic: Lessons from Ofu, American Samoa

The Future of Coral Reefs Subject to Rapid Climate Change: Lessons from Natural Extreme Environments

Using Nematostella vectensis to Study the Interactions between Genome, Epigenome, and Bacteria in a Changing Environment

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