Abstract
Unlike most parts of the world, coral reefs of Taiwan’s deep south have generally been spared from climate change-induced degradation. This has been linked to the oceanographically unique nature of Nanwan Bay, where intense upwelling occurs. Specifically, large-amplitude internal waves cause shifts in temperature of 6–9 °C over the course of several hours, and the resident corals not only thrive under such conditions, but they have also been shown to withstand multi-month laboratory incubations at experimentally elevated temperatures. To gain insight into the sub-cellular basis of acclimation to upwelling, proteins isolated from reef corals (Seriatopora hystrix) featured in laboratory-based reciprocal transplant studies in which corals from upwelling and non-upwelling control reefs (<20 km away) were exposed to stable or variable temperature regimes were analyzed via label-based proteomics (iTRAQ). Corals exposed to their “native” temperature conditions for seven days (1) demonstrated highest growth rates and (2) were most distinct from one another with respect to their protein signatures. The latter observation was driven by the fact that two Symbiodiniaceae lipid trafficking proteins, sec1a and sec34, were marginally up-regulated in corals exposed to their native temperature conditions. Alongside the marked degree of proteomic “site fidelity” documented, this dataset sheds light on the molecular mechanisms underlying acclimatization to thermodynamically extreme conditions in situ.
Highlights
Despite the fact that most reef coral-dinoflagellate endosymbioses are environmentally sensitive [1,2,3,4], disintegrating upon exposure to sub-optimal environmental conditions [5], a number of species/populations in various parts of the world have demonstrated a marked degree of physiological resilience to, for instance, dramatically elevated [6,7,8] and/or highly variable temperatures [9,10,11,12,13,14]
Even corals from non-upwelling reefs were able to acclimate to upwelling-simulating conditions in a laboratory-based reciprocal transplant [21] known as the “S. hystrix variable temperature study” (SHVTS), though, in general, both growth and photosynthetic output were higher in corals exposed to their “native” temperature conditions
As a secondary means of selecting proteins of interest” (POIs), and because information theory-based approaches are arguably better suited for analysis of ‘OMICs datasets than more traditional, inferential statistics that are rooted in the calculation and interpretation of p-values [39], JMP Pro’s stepwise regression (SRA) platform was used with the experimental factor of interest as the Y and the 30 proteins as predictors (X)
Summary
Despite the fact that most reef coral-dinoflagellate endosymbioses are environmentally sensitive [1,2,3,4], disintegrating (i.e., bleaching) upon exposure to sub-optimal environmental conditions [5], a number of species/populations in various parts of the world have demonstrated a marked degree of physiological resilience to, for instance, dramatically elevated [6,7,8] and/or highly variable temperatures [9,10,11,12,13,14]. Even corals from non-upwelling reefs were able to acclimate to upwelling-simulating conditions in a laboratory-based reciprocal transplant [21] known as the “S. hystrix variable temperature study” (SHVTS), though, in general, both growth and photosynthetic output were higher in corals exposed to their “native” temperature conditions (i.e., upwelling and non-upwelling corals under variable and stable temperatures, respectively) With these physiological data in hand (summarized in Table 1), a global team of researchers from Taiwan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere has spent the past decade attempting to gain a better understanding of how these, as well as other Southern Taiwanese coral-dinoflagellate endosymbioses (namely Pocillopora acuta and Stylophora pistillata) from oceanographically distinct environments, acclimate to changes in temperature in the laboratory [23,24,25,26,27], as well as acclimatize to such environmental heterogeneity and perturbation in the field [28]. It was hypothesized that this quantitative proteomics approach could uncover thermo-sensitive proteins underlying (or associated with) the molecular basis of coral thermotolerance to highly dynamic temperature regimes
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