Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, QLD, Australia.
School of BioSciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia.
Nat Commun. 2022 Mar 29;13(1):1543. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-28956-8.
Finding coral reefs resilient to climate warming is challenging given the large spatial scale of reef ecosystems. Methods are needed to predict the location of corals with heritable tolerance to high temperatures. Here, we combine Great Barrier Reef-scale remote sensing with breeding experiments that estimate larval and juvenile coral survival under exposure to high temperatures. Using reproductive corals collected from the northern and central Great Barrier Reef, we develop forecasting models to locate reefs harbouring corals capable of producing offspring with increased heat tolerance of an additional 3.4° heating weeks (3 °C). Our findings predict hundreds of reefs (7.5%) may be home to corals that have high and heritable heat-tolerance in habitats with high daily and annual temperature ranges and historically variable heat stress. The locations identified represent targets for protection and consideration as a source of corals for use in restoration of degraded reefs given their potential to resist climate change impacts and repopulate reefs with tolerant offspring.
鉴于珊瑚礁生态系统的空间尺度很大，要找到对气候变暖具有弹性的珊瑚礁极具挑战性。需要采用一些方法来预测那些具有遗传耐高温能力的珊瑚的位置。在这里，我们结合大堡礁尺度的遥感技术和繁殖实验，估计在高温暴露下幼虫和幼体珊瑚的存活率。我们使用从大堡礁北部和中部采集的有繁殖能力的珊瑚，开发预测模型，以定位那些可能拥有珊瑚的珊瑚礁，这些珊瑚能够产生具有额外 3.4 周高温耐受性（约 3°C）的后代。我们的研究结果预测，在每日和年度温度范围较高且历史上热压力变化较大的栖息地中，可能有数百个（约 7.5%）珊瑚礁是具有高耐热性和遗传性的珊瑚的家园。这些确定的地点代表了保护的目标，也可以考虑作为珊瑚的来源，用于退化珊瑚礁的恢复，因为它们具有抵抗气候变化影响和用有耐受性的后代重新填充珊瑚礁的潜力。
