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Skeletal light-scattering accelerates bleaching response in reef-building corals

BACKGROUND: At the forefront of ecosystems adversely affected by climate change, coral reefs are sensitive to anomalously high temperatures which disassociate (bleaching) photosynthetic symbionts (Symbiodinium) from coral hosts and cause increasingly frequent and severe mass mortality events. Suscep...

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Autores principales: Swain, Timothy D., DuBois, Emily, Gomes, Andrew, Stoyneva, Valentina P., Radosevich, Andrew J., Henss, Jillian, Wagner, Michelle E., Derbas, Justin, Grooms, Hannah W., Velazquez, Elizabeth M., Traub, Joshua, Kennedy, Brian J., Grigorescu, Arabela A., Westneat, Mark W., Sanborn, Kevin, Levine, Shoshana, Schick, Mark, Parsons, George, Biggs, Brendan C., Rogers, Jeremy D., Backman, Vadim, Marcelino, Luisa A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4800776/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26996922
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-016-0061-4
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author Swain, Timothy D.
DuBois, Emily
Gomes, Andrew
Stoyneva, Valentina P.
Radosevich, Andrew J.
Henss, Jillian
Wagner, Michelle E.
Derbas, Justin
Grooms, Hannah W.
Velazquez, Elizabeth M.
Traub, Joshua
Kennedy, Brian J.
Grigorescu, Arabela A.
Westneat, Mark W.
Sanborn, Kevin
Levine, Shoshana
Schick, Mark
Parsons, George
Biggs, Brendan C.
Rogers, Jeremy D.
Backman, Vadim
Marcelino, Luisa A.
author_facet Swain, Timothy D.
DuBois, Emily
Gomes, Andrew
Stoyneva, Valentina P.
Radosevich, Andrew J.
Henss, Jillian
Wagner, Michelle E.
Derbas, Justin
Grooms, Hannah W.
Velazquez, Elizabeth M.
Traub, Joshua
Kennedy, Brian J.
Grigorescu, Arabela A.
Westneat, Mark W.
Sanborn, Kevin
Levine, Shoshana
Schick, Mark
Parsons, George
Biggs, Brendan C.
Rogers, Jeremy D.
Backman, Vadim
Marcelino, Luisa A.
author_sort Swain, Timothy D.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: At the forefront of ecosystems adversely affected by climate change, coral reefs are sensitive to anomalously high temperatures which disassociate (bleaching) photosynthetic symbionts (Symbiodinium) from coral hosts and cause increasingly frequent and severe mass mortality events. Susceptibility to bleaching and mortality is variable among corals, and is determined by unknown proportions of environmental history and the synergy of Symbiodinium- and coral-specific properties. Symbiodinium live within host tissues overlaying the coral skeleton, which increases light availability through multiple light-scattering, forming one of the most efficient biological collectors of solar radiation. Light-transport in the upper ~200 μm layer of corals skeletons (measured as ‘microscopic’ reduced-scattering coefficient, [Formula: see text] ), has been identified as a determinant of excess light increase during bleaching and is therefore a potential determinant of the differential rate and severity of bleaching response among coral species. RESULTS: Here we experimentally demonstrate (in ten coral species) that, under thermal stress alone or combined thermal and light stress, low-[Formula: see text] corals bleach at higher rate and severity than high-[Formula: see text] corals and the Symbiodinium associated with low-[Formula: see text] corals experience twice the decrease in photochemical efficiency. We further modelled the light absorbed by Symbiodinium due to skeletal-scattering and show that the estimated skeleton-dependent light absorbed by Symbiodinium (per unit of photosynthetic pigment) and the temporal rate of increase in absorbed light during bleaching are several fold higher in low-[Formula: see text] corals. CONCLUSIONS: While symbionts associated with low-[Formula: see text] corals receive less total light from the skeleton, they experience a higher rate of light increase once bleaching is initiated and absorbing bodies are lost; further precipitating the bleaching response. Because microscopic skeletal light-scattering is a robust predictor of light-dependent bleaching among the corals assessed here, this work establishes [Formula: see text] as one of the key determinants of differential bleaching response. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12898-016-0061-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-48007762016-03-22 Skeletal light-scattering accelerates bleaching response in reef-building corals Swain, Timothy D. DuBois, Emily Gomes, Andrew Stoyneva, Valentina P. Radosevich, Andrew J. Henss, Jillian Wagner, Michelle E. Derbas, Justin Grooms, Hannah W. Velazquez, Elizabeth M. Traub, Joshua Kennedy, Brian J. Grigorescu, Arabela A. Westneat, Mark W. Sanborn, Kevin Levine, Shoshana Schick, Mark Parsons, George Biggs, Brendan C. Rogers, Jeremy D. Backman, Vadim Marcelino, Luisa A. BMC Ecol Research BACKGROUND: At the forefront of ecosystems adversely affected by climate change, coral reefs are sensitive to anomalously high temperatures which disassociate (bleaching) photosynthetic symbionts (Symbiodinium) from coral hosts and cause increasingly frequent and severe mass mortality events. Susceptibility to bleaching and mortality is variable among corals, and is determined by unknown proportions of environmental history and the synergy of Symbiodinium- and coral-specific properties. Symbiodinium live within host tissues overlaying the coral skeleton, which increases light availability through multiple light-scattering, forming one of the most efficient biological collectors of solar radiation. Light-transport in the upper ~200 μm layer of corals skeletons (measured as ‘microscopic’ reduced-scattering coefficient, [Formula: see text] ), has been identified as a determinant of excess light increase during bleaching and is therefore a potential determinant of the differential rate and severity of bleaching response among coral species. RESULTS: Here we experimentally demonstrate (in ten coral species) that, under thermal stress alone or combined thermal and light stress, low-[Formula: see text] corals bleach at higher rate and severity than high-[Formula: see text] corals and the Symbiodinium associated with low-[Formula: see text] corals experience twice the decrease in photochemical efficiency. We further modelled the light absorbed by Symbiodinium due to skeletal-scattering and show that the estimated skeleton-dependent light absorbed by Symbiodinium (per unit of photosynthetic pigment) and the temporal rate of increase in absorbed light during bleaching are several fold higher in low-[Formula: see text] corals. CONCLUSIONS: While symbionts associated with low-[Formula: see text] corals receive less total light from the skeleton, they experience a higher rate of light increase once bleaching is initiated and absorbing bodies are lost; further precipitating the bleaching response. Because microscopic skeletal light-scattering is a robust predictor of light-dependent bleaching among the corals assessed here, this work establishes [Formula: see text] as one of the key determinants of differential bleaching response. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12898-016-0061-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2016-03-21 /pmc/articles/PMC4800776/ /pubmed/26996922 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-016-0061-4 Text en © Swain et al. 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Swain, Timothy D.
DuBois, Emily
Gomes, Andrew
Stoyneva, Valentina P.
Radosevich, Andrew J.
Henss, Jillian
Wagner, Michelle E.
Derbas, Justin
Grooms, Hannah W.
Velazquez, Elizabeth M.
Traub, Joshua
Kennedy, Brian J.
Grigorescu, Arabela A.
Westneat, Mark W.
Sanborn, Kevin
Levine, Shoshana
Schick, Mark
Parsons, George
Biggs, Brendan C.
Rogers, Jeremy D.
Backman, Vadim
Marcelino, Luisa A.
Skeletal light-scattering accelerates bleaching response in reef-building corals
title Skeletal light-scattering accelerates bleaching response in reef-building corals
title_full Skeletal light-scattering accelerates bleaching response in reef-building corals
title_fullStr Skeletal light-scattering accelerates bleaching response in reef-building corals
title_full_unstemmed Skeletal light-scattering accelerates bleaching response in reef-building corals
title_short Skeletal light-scattering accelerates bleaching response in reef-building corals
title_sort skeletal light-scattering accelerates bleaching response in reef-building corals
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4800776/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26996922
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-016-0061-4
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