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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Adriana Humanes Schumann, Dr Liam LachsORCiD, Elizabeth Beauchamp, Professor John BythellORCiD, Emeritus Professor Alasdair Edwards, Helios Martinez Da Almeida, Dr Pawel PalmowskiORCiD, Dr Eveline van der Steeg, Alex Ward, Dr James Guest
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© The Author(s) 2024.Marine heatwaves are becoming more frequent, widespread and severe, causing mass coral bleaching and mortality. Natural adaptation may be insufficient to keep pace with climate warming, leading to calls for selective breeding interventions to enhance the ability of corals to survive such heatwaves, i.e., their heat tolerance. However, the heritability of this trait–a prerequisite for such approaches–remains unknown. We show that selecting parent colonies for high rather than low heat tolerance increased the tolerance of adult offspring (3–4-year-olds). This result held for the response to both 1-week +3.5 °C and 1-month +2.5 °C simulated marine heatwaves. In each case, narrow-sense heritability (h2) estimates are between 0.2 and 0.3, demonstrating a substantial genetic basis of heat tolerance. The phenotypic variability identified in this population could theoretically be leveraged to enhance heat tolerance by up to 1 °C-week within one generation. Concerningly, selective breeding for short-stress tolerance did not improve the ability of offspring to survive the long heat stress exposure. With no genetic correlation detected, these traits may be subject to independent genetic controls. Our finding on the heritability of coral heat tolerance indicates that selective breeding could be a viable tool to improve population resilience. Yet, the moderate levels of enhancement we found suggest that the effectiveness of such interventions also demands urgent climate action.
Author(s): Humanes A, Lachs L, Beauchamp E, Bukurou L, Buzzoni D, Bythell J, Craggs JRK, de la Torre Cerro R, Edwards AJ, Golbuu Y, Martinez HM, Palmowski P, van der Steeg E, Sweet M, Ward A, Wilson AJ, Guest JR
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Nature Communications
Year: 2024
Volume: 15
Issue: 1
Online publication date: 14/10/2024
Acceptance date: 20/09/2024
Date deposited: 28/10/2024
ISSN (electronic): 2041-1723
Publisher: Nature Research
URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-52895-1
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52895-1
Data Access Statement: The data generated in this study on coral heat tolerance phenotypes, crosses conducted, coral colony sizes, symbiont ITS2 profiles, and temperature experiment conditions have been deposited at https:// doi.org/10.25405/data.ncl.22812194. Source data are provided with this paper. All datasets analysed are publicly available as of the date of publication. ITS2 sequences have been archived publicly at NCBI under BioProject 864615 (accession code PRJNA864615). Source data are provided with this paper. All datasets generated in this study and original R scripts used for analysis have been deposited at https://doi.org/10.25405/data.ncl. 22812194. Processed symbiont community composition can be explored publicly at https://symportal.org
PubMed id: 39402025
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