Assessing acute thermal assays as a rapid screening tool for coral restoration

Autor: C. N. Klepac, C. G. Petrik, E. Karabelas, J. Owens, E. R. Hall, E. M. Muller
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: Scientific Reports, Vol 14, Iss 1, Pp 1-13 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2045-2322
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-51944-5
Popis: Abstract Escalating environmental threats to coral reefs coincides with global advancements in coral restoration programs. To improve long-term efficacy, practitioners must consider incorporating genotypes resilient to ocean warming and disease while maintaining genetic diversity. Identifying such genotypes typically occurs under long-term exposures that mimic natural stressors, but these experiments can be time-consuming, costly, and introduce tank effects, hindering scalability for hundreds of nursery genotypes used for outplanting. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of the acute Coral Bleaching Automated Stress System (CBASS) against long-term exposures on the bleaching response of Acropora cervicornis, the dominant restoration species in Florida’s Coral Reef. Comparing bleaching metrics, F v/F m, chlorophyll, and host protein, we observed similar responses between the long-term heat and the CBASS treatment of 34.3 °C, which was also the calculated bleaching threshold. This suggests the potential of CBASS as a rapid screening tool, with 90% of restoration genotypes exhibiting similar bleaching tolerances. However, variations in acute bleaching phenotypes arose from measurement timing and experiment heat accumulation, cautioning against generalizations solely based on metrics like F v/F m. These findings identify the need to better refine the tools necessary to quickly and effectively screen coral restoration genotypes and determine their relative tolerance for restoration interventions.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
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