Assessing acute thermal assays as a rapid screening tool for coral restoration
Klepac, C.N.; Petrik, C.G.; Karabelas, E.; Owens, J.; Hall, E.R.; Muller, E.M. (2024). Assessing acute thermal assays as a rapid screening tool for coral restoration. NPG Scientific Reports 14(1): 1898. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-51944-5
In: Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group). Nature Publishing Group: London. ISSN 2045-2322; e-ISSN 2045-2322, more
|   |
| Authors | | Top |
- Klepac, C.N.
- Petrik, C.G.
- Karabelas, E.
|
- Owens, J.
- Hall, E.R.
- Muller, E.M.
|
|
| 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, Fv/Fm, 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 Fv/Fm. 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. |
|
