Department of Biology, California State University, 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA 91330-8303, USA.
Department of Biological Science, University of Rhode Island, 120 Flagg Road, Kingston, RI 02881, USA.
Biol Lett. 2020 Jul;16(7):20200227. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2020.0227. Epub 2020 Jul 15.
One response to the coral reef crisis has been human intervention to enhance selection on the fittest corals through cultivation. This requires genotypes to be identified for intervention, with a primary basis for this choice being growth: corals that quickly grow on contemporary reefs might be future winners. To test for temporal stability of growth as a predictor of future performance, genotypes of the coral spp. were grown in common gardens in Mo'orea, French Polynesia. Growth was measured every two to four months throughout 2018, and each period was used as a predictor of growth over the subsequent period. Area-normalized growth explained less than 29% of the variance in subsequent growth, but for biomass-normalized growth this increased to 45-60%, and was highest when summer growth was used to predict autumn growth. The capacity of initial growth to predict future performance is dependent on the units of measurement and the time of year in which it is measured. The final choice of traits to quantify performance must be informed through consideration of the species and the normalization that best capture the information inherent in the biological processes mediating variation in traits values.
应对珊瑚礁危机的一种方法是人为干预，通过培育来增强对最适应环境的珊瑚的选择。这需要确定用于干预的基因型，选择的主要依据是生长速度：在当前的珊瑚礁上快速生长的珊瑚可能是未来的优胜者。为了检验生长速度作为未来表现预测指标的时间稳定性，在法属波利尼西亚的莫雷阿岛（Mo'orea）的共同花园中种植了珊瑚属的基因型。在 2018 年期间，每隔两到四个月测量一次生长速度，每个时期都被用作预测下一个时期生长速度的指标。面积归一化生长速度仅解释了后续生长速度变化的不到 29%，但对于生物量归一化生长速度，这一比例增加到 45-60%，而当使用夏季生长速度来预测秋季生长速度时，这一比例最高。初始生长速度对未来表现的预测能力取决于测量的单位和测量的时间。最终选择的量化表现的特征必须通过考虑物种和最佳归一化方法来确定，以捕获在介导特征值变化的生物过程中固有的信息。
