“…In addition, seasonal changes in these parameters also drive subsequent variation in coral physiology (Scheufen et al, 2017). Contrary to the case of random environmental variation, the predictability of seasonal fluctuations can be conducive to the development and inheritance of plastic transcriptional profiles mediating phenotypic responses, regulated by epigenetic mechanisms [e.g., seasonal DNA methylation changes in bivalve mollusks (Suarez-Ulloa et al, 2019), plants (Ito et al, 2019) and birds (Viitaniemi et al, 2019)]. Indeed, seasonality produces dramatic physiological adjustments in corals, including changes in symbiont's abundance and pigmentation (Fitt et al, 2000;Thornhill et al, 2006), modifications of microbial community composition (Sharp et al, 2017), as well as the alteration of transcriptional profiles (Edge et al, 2008;Brady et al, 2011;Parkinson et al, 2018;Brener-Raffalli et al, 2019).…”