Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology, Kāne'ohe, HI, USA.
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Nat Commun. 2022 Aug 15;13(1):4790. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32452-4.
Phenotypic plasticity is an important ecological and evolutionary response for organisms experiencing environmental change, but the ubiquity of this capacity within coral species and across symbiont communities is unknown. We exposed ten genotypes of the reef-building coral Montipora capitata with divergent symbiont communities to four thermal pre-exposure profiles and quantified gene expression before stress testing 4 months later. Here we show two pre-exposure profiles significantly enhance thermal tolerance despite broadly different expression patterns and substantial variation in acclimatization potential based on coral genotype. There was no relationship between a genotype's basal thermal sensitivity and ability to acquire heat tolerance, including in corals harboring naturally tolerant symbionts, which illustrates the potential for additive improvements in coral response to climate change. These results represent durable improvements from short-term stress hardening of reef-building corals and substantial cryptic complexity in the capacity for plasticity.
表型可塑性是生物体应对环境变化的一种重要生态和进化响应，但珊瑚物种及其共生体群落中这种能力的普遍性尚不清楚。我们将十种具有不同共生体群落的造礁珊瑚 Montipora capitata 暴露于四种热预暴露环境中，并在 4 个月后进行应激测试前对基因表达进行了量化。在这里，我们展示了两种预暴露环境显著提高了热耐受性，尽管表达模式存在广泛差异，并且基于珊瑚基因型的适应能力存在很大差异。基因型的基础热敏感性与其获得耐热能力之间没有关系，包括那些含有天然耐受共生体的珊瑚，这说明了珊瑚对气候变化的响应能力具有潜在的可加性改善。这些结果代表了造礁珊瑚短期应激硬化的持久改善，以及可塑性的巨大潜在复杂性。
