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Organic eutrophication increases resistance of the pulsating soft coral Xenia umbellata to warming

Recent research indicates that hard corals in a process that is termed phase shift are often replaced by soft corals in reefs. The simultaneous occurrence of local (i.e. organic eutrophication as highly under-investigated parameter) and global (i.e. ocean warming) factors may facilitate these phase...

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Autores principales: Vollstedt, Svea, Xiang, Nan, Simancas-Giraldo, Susana Marcela, Wild, Christian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7316076/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32607278
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9182
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author Vollstedt, Svea
Xiang, Nan
Simancas-Giraldo, Susana Marcela
Wild, Christian
author_facet Vollstedt, Svea
Xiang, Nan
Simancas-Giraldo, Susana Marcela
Wild, Christian
author_sort Vollstedt, Svea
collection PubMed
description Recent research indicates that hard corals in a process that is termed phase shift are often replaced by soft corals in reefs. The simultaneous occurrence of local (i.e. organic eutrophication as highly under-investigated parameter) and global (i.e. ocean warming) factors may facilitate these phase shifts as hard corals are negatively affected by both ocean warming and organic eutrophication. Knowledge about soft coral responses to environmental change remains incomplete, although these organisms are becoming important players in reefs. The present study thus investigated the individual and combined effects of organic eutrophication (as glucose addition) and warming on the ecological data of the pulsating soft coral Xenia umbellata. We assessed health status, growth and pulsation rates of soft corals in a 45 day aquarium experiment, with first manipulation of organic eutrophication (no, low, medium and high glucose addition) over 21 days followed by step-wise increases in water temperature from 26 to 32 °C over 24 days. Findings revealed that glucose addition did not affect health status, growth and pulsation rates of the investigated soft corals. Under simulated ocean warming, soft corals that had experienced organic eutrophication before, maintained significantly higher pulsation rates (averaging 22 beats per minute—bpm) and no mortality compared to the controls that showed a decrease of 56% (averaging 15 bpm) in pulsation rates and mortality of 30% at water temperatures of 32 °C compared to 26 °C. This apparently positive effect of organic eutrophication on the ecological data of soft corals under an ocean warming scenario decreased with increasing water temperature. This study thus indicates that (a) organic eutrophication as additional energy source up to a certain threshold may increase the resistance of soft corals to ocean warming and (b) pulsation rates of soft corals may be used as inexpensive, easily detectable, and non-invasive early warning indicator for ocean warming effects on benthic reef communities. When comparing findings of this study for soft corals with previous results for hard corals, it can be assumed that soft corals under the predicted increases of organic eutrophication and warming gain more and more competitive advantages. This may further facilitate phase shifts from hard to soft corals in warming reefs.
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spelling pubmed-73160762020-06-29 Organic eutrophication increases resistance of the pulsating soft coral Xenia umbellata to warming Vollstedt, Svea Xiang, Nan Simancas-Giraldo, Susana Marcela Wild, Christian PeerJ Ecology Recent research indicates that hard corals in a process that is termed phase shift are often replaced by soft corals in reefs. The simultaneous occurrence of local (i.e. organic eutrophication as highly under-investigated parameter) and global (i.e. ocean warming) factors may facilitate these phase shifts as hard corals are negatively affected by both ocean warming and organic eutrophication. Knowledge about soft coral responses to environmental change remains incomplete, although these organisms are becoming important players in reefs. The present study thus investigated the individual and combined effects of organic eutrophication (as glucose addition) and warming on the ecological data of the pulsating soft coral Xenia umbellata. We assessed health status, growth and pulsation rates of soft corals in a 45 day aquarium experiment, with first manipulation of organic eutrophication (no, low, medium and high glucose addition) over 21 days followed by step-wise increases in water temperature from 26 to 32 °C over 24 days. Findings revealed that glucose addition did not affect health status, growth and pulsation rates of the investigated soft corals. Under simulated ocean warming, soft corals that had experienced organic eutrophication before, maintained significantly higher pulsation rates (averaging 22 beats per minute—bpm) and no mortality compared to the controls that showed a decrease of 56% (averaging 15 bpm) in pulsation rates and mortality of 30% at water temperatures of 32 °C compared to 26 °C. This apparently positive effect of organic eutrophication on the ecological data of soft corals under an ocean warming scenario decreased with increasing water temperature. This study thus indicates that (a) organic eutrophication as additional energy source up to a certain threshold may increase the resistance of soft corals to ocean warming and (b) pulsation rates of soft corals may be used as inexpensive, easily detectable, and non-invasive early warning indicator for ocean warming effects on benthic reef communities. When comparing findings of this study for soft corals with previous results for hard corals, it can be assumed that soft corals under the predicted increases of organic eutrophication and warming gain more and more competitive advantages. This may further facilitate phase shifts from hard to soft corals in warming reefs. PeerJ Inc. 2020-06-22 /pmc/articles/PMC7316076/ /pubmed/32607278 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9182 Text en © 2020 Vollstedt et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Ecology
Vollstedt, Svea
Xiang, Nan
Simancas-Giraldo, Susana Marcela
Wild, Christian
Organic eutrophication increases resistance of the pulsating soft coral Xenia umbellata to warming
title Organic eutrophication increases resistance of the pulsating soft coral Xenia umbellata to warming
title_full Organic eutrophication increases resistance of the pulsating soft coral Xenia umbellata to warming
title_fullStr Organic eutrophication increases resistance of the pulsating soft coral Xenia umbellata to warming
title_full_unstemmed Organic eutrophication increases resistance of the pulsating soft coral Xenia umbellata to warming
title_short Organic eutrophication increases resistance of the pulsating soft coral Xenia umbellata to warming
title_sort organic eutrophication increases resistance of the pulsating soft coral xenia umbellata to warming
topic Ecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7316076/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32607278
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9182
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