Journal
CORAL REEFS
Volume 38, Issue 2, Pages 331-345Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s00338-019-01779-8
Keywords
Coral; Microbiome; El Ni(n)over-tildeo; Local disturbance; Heat stress; Climate change; Alpha diversity; Beta diversity; Bacteria; Multiple stressors
Categories
Funding
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Canada Graduate Scholarship
- Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement
- Sigma Xi
- American Museum of Natural History
- University of Victoria
- NSF RAPID [OCE-1446402]
- Packard Foundation
- Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation
- NSERC Discovery Grant
- Canadian Foundation for Innovation
- British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund
- UVic's Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives
- NSF Dimensions of Biodiversity Grant [1442306]
- Kiribati Government
- Division Of Ocean Sciences
- Directorate For Geosciences [1442306] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Emerging evidence indicates that individual stressors can modify the coral microbiome; however, few studies have examined the impacts of multiple stressors through natural climatic events. During periods of low and high heat stress associated with the 2015-2016 El Ni (n) over tildeo, we tracked the microbiomes of two coral species (Porites lobata and Montipora aequituberculata) across sites on Kiritimati (Christmas) Island with different levels of local disturbance (i.e. subsistence fishing, pollution, dredging). At low heat stress, local disturbance was associated with increased microbial alpha diversity (i.e. number of microbial OTUs and their relative abundance) in both species and increased beta diversity (i.e. coral to coral variation in microbial community composition) in P. lobata. High levels of thermal stress subsequently elevated microbial beta diversity in both species at the low disturbance sites up to the level experienced at the high disturbance sites under low heat stress, illustrating that each stressor can destabilize the coral microbiome. However, with high heat stress microbial alpha diversity was no longer significantly different between disturbance levels for either species. Survival of P. lobata throughout the entire El Ni (n) over tildeo event was greater at low disturbance sites than high ones (40% vs. 15%), suggesting that protection from local stressors may enhance survival of stress-tolerant corals. However, no M. aequituberculata tracked in this study survived the thermal anomaly. Whether enhanced survivorship can be directly attributed to lower microbial diversity, however, remains to be tested. Overall, we found that, rather than acting synergistically, multiple stressors either acted antagonistically to one another (alpha diversity for both coral species, beta diversity for P. lobata) or exhibited dominance (beta diversity for M. aequituberculata), suggesting that multiple stressors cause various interaction outcomes on the coral microbiome and highlighting the need for future research to evaluate these interactions and their consequences for coral resilience.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available