Thermal tolerances of reef corals in the Gulf: A review of the potential for increasing coral survival and adaptation to climate change through assisted translocation

Coles, S. L.; Riegl, Bernhard

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2012.09.006

Cited by 122 publications

(118 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…Reduction of emissions, in particular carbon dioxide, is undoubtedly required to preserve the future form, function and ecosystem services of coral reefs (Gattuso et al, 2015;Hughes et al, 2017). But there is also an increasing debate over the need to facilitate coral survival through proactive reef management, e.g., reef restoration and/or assisted evolution processes (e.g., Coles and Riegl, 2013;van Oppen et al, 2015;Oppen et al, 2017). The use of proactive reef management is highly debated and beyond this synthesis (see van Oppen et al, 2015;Oppen et al, 2017), but what is evident from these extreme environments is the presence of corals that have traits highly favorable for future survival.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Corals within the PAG have the highest upper temperature thresholds for bleaching (∼35-36 • C; Riegl and Purkis, 2012;Coles and Riegl, 2013), but still remain highly susceptible to bleaching when temperatures exceed their local maximum summer temperatures (Coles and Riegl, 2013;Kavousi et al, 2014). For example, five times from 1995 to 2010, temperatures exceeded normal summer temperatures, reaching 35-37 • C for extended periods of time, which resulted in extensive bleaching and mortality (Coles and Riegl, 2013;Kavousi et al, 2014).…”

Section: High Temperature Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, five times from 1995 to 2010, temperatures exceeded normal summer temperatures, reaching 35-37 • C for extended periods of time, which resulted in extensive bleaching and mortality (Coles and Riegl, 2013;Kavousi et al, 2014). These disturbances resulted in a decline of branching species and rise of massive favid corals.…”

Section: High Temperature Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

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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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: High Temperature Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: High Temperature Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2018

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“…What environmental conditions are associated with the presence of heat adapted alleles? Certainly, the extreme temperature profiles of the HV pool are not unique to Ofu; corals are found in a variety of extreme environments and are exposed to temperatures that would cause bleaching in their conspecifics from other areas (Coles and Riegl, 2013;Kline et al, 2015;Richards et al, 2015;Camp et al, 2017). Wide variation in thermal tolerance and genetic divergence has been reported across latitudes and at large-spatial scales (Middlebrook et al, 2008;Howells et al, 2013;Dixon et al, 2015;Thomas et al, 2017), and it is becoming increasingly clear that locally adapted thermally tolerant pockets of corals exist at fine-spatial scales within a variety of coral reef systems (Goreau and Macfarlane, 1990;Barshis et al, 2010;Castillo et al, 2012;Kenkel et al, 2013bKenkel et al, , 2015Schoepf et al, 2015).…”

Section: Synthesis Local Adaptation Amidst High Gene Flowmentioning

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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“…The environmental conditions in the PAG are arguably the most extreme in the world under which corals exist. Corals in the PAG are exposed to extreme fluctuations of temperatures (from 11 to 36 ° C) and high salinity (often > 44 PSU) (Coles & Riegl, 2013). The conditions experienced by corals in the RS and the PAG are generally beyond the limits of what corals experience and survive elsewhere, which for the PAG has been shown to be partially attributable to a recently identified symbiont species, Symbiodinium thermophilum (Hume et al ., 2015), that is prevalent in the PAG due to its preference to high salinity (D'Angelo et al ., 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biogeography and molecular diversity of coral symbionts in the genus Symbiodinium around the Arabian Peninsula

Ziegler

Arif

Burt

et al. 2017

Journal of Biogeography

135

130

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AimCoral reefs rely on the symbiosis between scleractinian corals and intracellular, photosynthetic dinoflagellates of the genus Symbiodinium making the assessment of symbiont diversity critical to our understanding of ecological resilience of these ecosystems. This study characterizes Symbiodinium diversity around the Arabian Peninsula, which contains some of the most thermally diverse and understudied reefs on Earth.LocationShallow water coral reefs throughout the Red Sea (RS), Sea of Oman (SO), and Persian/Arabian Gulf (PAG).MethodsNext‐generation sequencing of the ITS2 marker gene was used to assess Symbiodinium community composition and diversity comprising 892 samples from 46 hard and soft coral genera.ResultsCorals were associated with a large diversity of Symbiodinium, which usually consisted of one or two prevalent symbiont types and many types at low abundance. Symbiodinium communities were strongly structured according to geographical region and to a lesser extent by coral host identity. Overall symbiont communities were composed primarily of species from clade A and C in the RS, clade A, C, and D in the SO, and clade C and D in the PAG, representing a gradual shift from C‐ to D‐dominated coral hosts. The analysis of symbiont diversity in an Operational Taxonomic Unit (OTU)‐based framework allowed the identification of differences in symbiont taxon richness over geographical regions and host genera.Main conclusionsOur study represents a comprehensive overview over biogeography and molecular diversity of Symbiodinium in the Arabian Seas, where coral reefs thrive in one of the most extreme environmental settings on the planet. As such our data will serve as a baseline for further exploration into the effects of environmental change on host–symbiont pairings and the identification and ecological significance of Symbiodinium types from regions already experiencing ‘Future Ocean’ conditions.

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Thermal tolerances of reef corals in the Gulf: A review of the potential for increasing coral survival and adaptation to climate change through assisted translocation

Cited by 122 publications

References 75 publications

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

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

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

Biogeography and molecular diversity of coral symbionts in the genus Symbiodinium around the Arabian Peninsula

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