Assessing the feasibility of assisted migration of corals in the Red Sea

Frontiers in Marine Science

Marine Science

Marcelle Muniz Barreto¹  Sebastian Schmidt-Roach¹  Huawen Zhong¹  Manuel Aranda¹ 

[1] Red Sea Research Center, Division of Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia;

关键词: assisted evolution;    coral resilience;    thermotolerance;    Porites lobata;    common garden experiment;    climate change;    coral bleaching;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fmars.2023.1181456

 received in 2023-03-07, accepted in 2023-07-25,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Climate change, and in particular the unprecedented rapid global warming, presents a major threat to corals, with warming rates potentially exceeding the adaptive capacities of most coral species. Assisted gene flow, the human facilitated introduction of temperature resilience alleles from warmer to threatened colder populations via the movement of individuals (assisted migration) or their gametes (selective breeding), has been suggested as a tool to transfer thermal adaptations among populations. Due to its strong latitudinal temperature gradient and extreme temperature conditions, the Red Sea constitutes an ideal location to investigate the potential of this strategy. Here, we relocated Porites lobata colonies from three reefs along the Saudi Arabian Red Sea with different mean sea surface temperature summer maxima (ranging from 30.9 °C in Duba, 32.5 °C in Thuwal, to 33.8 °C in Jazan) to a common garden experiment in the intermediate central location. Five colonies from each location were fragmented and deployed in situ in early summer of 2018 to investigate physiological differences in bleaching, survival, and growth. Results showed significantly higher bleaching in fragments from Duba, followed by 65% mortality. Even though no bleaching was observed in fragments from Jazan, mortality rates of around 20% indicated that other environmental parameters besides temperature might influence coral health and survival. These results suggest that assisted gene flow via translocation alone may be restricted in its success due to a lack of local adaptations to environmental conditions other than temperature. However, strategies like inter-populational breeding may overcome these limitations as they might allow producing offspring with both increased thermal tolerance and local adaptations.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Barreto, Schmidt-Roach, Zhong and Aranda