Natural Sciences   Climate  

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Ancestral genetic diversity associated with the rapid spread of stress-tolerant coral symbionts in response to Holocene climate change

1. Benjamin C. C. Humea,
2. Christian R. Voolstrab,
3. Chatchanit Arifb,
4. Cecilia D’Angeloa,c,
5. John A. Burtd,
6. Gal Eyale,f,
7. Yossi Loyae, and
8. Jörg Wiedenmanna,c,1

Author Affiliations

1. 
   aCoral Reef Laboratory, Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, Southampton SO14 3ZH, United Kingdom;
2. 
   bRed Sea Research Center, Division of Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia;
3. 
   cInstitute for Life Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom;
4. 
   dMarine Biology Laboratory, Centre for Genomics and Systems Biology, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi 129188, United Arab Emirates;
5. 
   eDepartment of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel;
6. 
   fThe Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat, Eilat 8810369, Israel

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Significance  Reef corals in the Persian/Arabian Gulf (PAG) withstand exceptionally high salinity and regular summer temperatures of ∼35 °C that kill conspecifics elsewhere. These thermotolerant communities established themselves within only ∼6,000 y under the pressure of rapid climate change and can therefore inform how other coral reefs may respond to global warming. One key to the thermotolerance of PAG corals is their symbiosis with Symbiodinium thermophilum. Phylogeographic evidence indicates that this symbiont represents a stress-tolerant subpopulation of an ancestral taxonomic group with surprising genetic diversity that exists at barely detectable levels outside the PAG. Our results highlight the critical importance of present-day biodiversity for future adaptation to climate change for coral reefs and ecosystems in general.

The results show

Haj Pilgrimage © Al Jazeera

Reference:
Benjamin C. C. Hume,  4416–4421, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1601910113

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