Physiological and reproductive repercussions of consecutive summer bleaching events of the threatened Caribbean coral Orbicella faveolata

Fisch, Jay; Drury, Crawford; Towle, Erica K.; Winter, Rivah N.; Miller, Margaret W.

doi:10.1007/s00338-019-01817-5

Cited by 60 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…This difference could be due to acclimatization, but the authors could not rule out symbiont shuffling or differential mortality leading to a higher proportion of resilient corals in the second event (Hughes et al, ). Studies that follow individual corals can conclusively rule out differential mortality, such as (Fisch, Drury, Towle, Winter, & Miller, ), who documented a substantial minority of surveyed colonies which experienced less severe visual bleaching in recurrent bleaching events that could be attributed to acclimatization (but see Thomas, López, Morikawa, & Palumbi, ).…”

Section: Ecological Signatures Of Acclimatization In Coralsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience in reef‐building corals: The ecological and evolutionary importance of the host response to thermal stress

Drury

2020

Molecular Ecology

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Coral reefs are under extreme threat due to a number of stressors, but temperature increases due to changing climate are the most severe. Rising ocean temperatures coupled with local extremes lead to extensive bleaching, where the coral‐algal symbiosis breaks down and corals may die, compromising the structure and function of reefs. Although the symbiotic nature of the coral colony has historically been a focus of research on coral resilience, the host itself is a foundational component in the response to thermal stress. Fixed effects in the coral host set trait baselines through evolutionary processes, acting on many loci of small effect to create mosaics of thermal tolerance across latitudes and individual coral reefs. These genomic differences can be strongly heritable, producing wide variation among clones of different genotypes or families of a specific larval cross. Phenotypic plasticity is overlaid on these baselines and a growing body of knowledge demonstrates the potential for acclimatization of reef‐building corals through a variety of mechanisms that promote resilience and stress tolerance. The long‐term persistence of coral reefs will require many of these mechanisms to adjust to warmer temperatures within a generation, bridging the gap to reproductive events that allow recombination of standing diversity and adaptive change. Business‐as‐usual climate scenarios will probably lead to the loss of some coral populations or species in the future, so the interaction between intragenerational effects and evolutionary pressure is critical for the survival of reefs.

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Section: Ecological Signatures Of Acclimatization In Coralsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience in reef‐building corals: The ecological and evolutionary importance of the host response to thermal stress

Drury

2020

Molecular Ecology

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“…Differential partial mortality between susceptible and resistant phenotypes therefore likely influences individual fitness and thus the genetic composition of offspring released in subsequent reproductive events. Further exacerbating this loss, corals that have recently undergone bleaching have a lower likelihood of reproducing at all relative to bleaching resistant conspecifics, and those that do manage to reproduce tend to release fewer and less provisioned gametes (Ward et al , 2000; Fisch et al , 2019). Together these factors will likely limit the evolutionary success of bleaching susceptible genotypes and the ecological resilience of the reef by reducing the recruitment pool and live coral cover (Fisch et al , 2019; Hughes et al , 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further exacerbating this loss, corals that have recently undergone bleaching have a lower likelihood of reproducing at all relative to bleaching resistant conspecifics, and those that do manage to reproduce tend to release fewer and less provisioned gametes (Ward et al , 2000; Fisch et al , 2019). Together these factors will likely limit the evolutionary success of bleaching susceptible genotypes and the ecological resilience of the reef by reducing the recruitment pool and live coral cover (Fisch et al , 2019; Hughes et al , 2019). However, the low frequency of complete colony mortality during this bleaching event indicates the adult gene pool has remained mostly intact, maintaining the genetic diversity of the current population.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coral bleaching susceptibility is predictive of subsequent mortality within but not between coral species

Matsuda

Huffmyer

Lenz

et al. 2019

Preprint

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18Marine heat waves instigated by anthropogenic climate change are causing increasingly frequent 19 and severe coral bleaching events that often lead to widespread coral mortality. While 20 community-wide increases in coral mortality following bleaching events have been documented 21 on reefs around the world, the ecological consequences for conspecific individual colonies 22 exhibiting contrasting phenotypes during thermal stress (e.g. bleached vs. not bleached) are not 23 well understood. Here we describe the ecological outcomes of colonies of the two dominant reef-24 building coral species in Kāne ohe Bay, Hawai i, Montipora capitata and Porites compressa, 25 that exhibited either a bleaching susceptible phenotype (bleached) or resistant phenotype (non-26 bleached) following the second of two consecutive coral bleaching events in Hawai i in 2015. 27Conspecific pairs of adjacent bleaching susceptible vs. resistant corals were tagged on patch 28 reefs in two regions of Kāne ohe Bay with different seawater residence times and terrestrial 29 influence. The ecological consequences (symbiont recovery and mortality) were monitored for 30 two years following the peak of the bleaching event. Bleaching susceptible corals suffered higher 31 partial mortality than bleaching resistant corals of the same species in the first 6 months 32 following thermal stress. Surprisingly, P. compressa had greater resilience following bleaching 33 (faster pigment recovery and lower post-bleaching mortality) than M. capitata, despite having 34 less resistance to bleaching (higher bleaching prevalence and severity). These differences 35 indicate that bleaching susceptibility of a species is not always a good predictor of mortality 36 following a bleaching event. By tracking the fate of individual colonies of resistant and 37 susceptible phenotypes, contrasting ecological consequences of thermal stress were revealed that 38 were undetectable at the population level. Furthermore, this approach revealed individuals that 39 underwent particularly rapid recovery from mortality, including some colonies over a meter in 40 diameter that recovered all live tissue cover from >60% partial mortality within just one year. 41These coral pairs continue to be maintained and monitored in the field, serving as a "living 42 library" for future investigations on the ecology and physiology of coral bleaching. 43 44 45 46 102 2008; Bahr et al., 2017; Hughes et al., 2017). Kāne ohe Bay, Hawai i, located on the northeast 103 coast of O ahu, is an opportune system for investigating this question of how intraspecific 104 variability in coral responses to thermal bleaching events driven by climate change influence 105 coral survival. The two dominant reef-building coral species in the bay, Montipora capitata and 106Porites compressa, both exhibit differences in thermal performance within and between species 107 during bleaching (Grottoli et al., 2006; Cunning et al., 2016; Wall et al., 2019). Differences in 108 5 symbiont associations and nutritional plasticity a...

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“…Here, we show transplantation of bleaching-resistant corals to a novel environment in situ did not alter their heat stress response, despite transplants exhibiting high levels of phenotypic plasticity for other traits. Because bleaching-resistant individuals have lower mortality (Matsuda et al 2020) and higher reproductive success (Fisch et al 2019;Ward et al 2000;Howells et al 2016) than bleaching-sensitive conspecifics following a bleaching event, they have a clear selective advantage during and in the years following these events. Harnessing these natural advantages by propagating bleaching-resistant individuals is a promising approach to increase the abundance of corals with these traits, and could potentially increase the bleaching resistance of a reef using native (i.e.…”

Section: Fitness Consequences Of Coral Acclimatization To Novel Envirmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bleaching resistant corals retain heat tolerance following acclimatization to environmentally distinct reefs

Barott

Huffmyer

Davidson

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Urgent action is needed to prevent the demise of coral reefs as the climate crisis leads to an increasingly warmer and more acidic ocean. Propagating climate change resistant corals to restore degraded reefs is one promising strategy; however, empirical evidence is needed to determine if resistance is retained following transplantation within or beyond a coral’s natal reef. Here we assessed the performance of bleaching-resistant individuals of two coral species following reciprocal transplantation between environmentally distinct reefs (low vs high diel variability) to determine if stress resistance is retained following transplantation. Critically, transplantation to either environment had no influence on coral bleaching resistance, indicating that this trait was relatively fixed and is thus a useful metric for selecting corals for reef restoration within their native range. In contrast, growth was highly plastic, and native performance was not predictive of performance in the novel environment. Coral metabolism was also plastic, with cross transplants of both species matching the performance of native corals at both reefs within three months. Coral physiology (autotrophy, heterotrophy, and metabolism) and overall fitness (survival, growth, and reproduction) were higher at the reef with higher flow and fluctuations in diel pH and dissolved oxygen, and did not differ between native corals and cross-transplants. Conversely, cross-transplants at the low-variability reef had higher fitness than native corals, thus increasing overall fitness of the recipient population. This experiment was conducted during a non-bleaching year, which suggests that introduction of these bleaching-resistant individuals will provide even greater fitness benefits to recipient populations during bleaching years. In summary, this study demonstrates that propagating and transplanting bleaching-resistant corals can elevate the resistance of coral populations to ocean warming while simultaneously maintaining reef function as the climate crisis worsens.

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Physiological and reproductive repercussions of consecutive summer bleaching events of the threatened Caribbean coral Orbicella faveolata

Cited by 60 publications

References 77 publications

Resilience in reef‐building corals: The ecological and evolutionary importance of the host response to thermal stress

Resilience in reef‐building corals: The ecological and evolutionary importance of the host response to thermal stress

Coral bleaching susceptibility is predictive of subsequent mortality within but not between coral species

Bleaching resistant corals retain heat tolerance following acclimatization to environmentally distinct reefs

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