Abstract
jabbrv-ltwa-all.ldf
jabbrv-ltwa-en.ldf
As climate change progresses and severe disturbances become routine,
understanding rates and mechanisms of recovery in habitat forming
species is central to predicting the broader response of ecosystems to
climate change. Here, we combined acute experimental heat stress and RNA
sequencing to explore patterns of transcriptome plasticity and
resilience to heat stress in a common Acropora coral from the World
Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef. Our data showed that corals subjected to
sub-bleaching temperatures (33 ºC) elicited a large transcriptional
response during heat stress, but quickly recovered to baseline levels of
expression 16 hours after temperatures returned to pre-treatment
conditions, with no evidence of bleaching. In contrast, corals exposed
to a one degree increase (34 ºC) from the sub-bleaching heat treatment,
mounted a transcriptional response nearly twice that of the
sub-bleaching temperature, showed a lingering stress response in their
transcriptome, and eventually bleached. Moreover, variation in the
severity of bleaching among colonies was linked to patterns of
transcriptome recovery – individuals that bleached heavily showed a
larger lag in transcriptional recovery than those with lower levels of
bleaching. Together, these findings provide new insight into the genetic
mechanisms of heat stress recovery in coral and highlight the role of
transcriptional plasticity in the resilience of coral to increasing
disturbances.