Abstract
BackgroundAt the forefront of ecosystems adversely affected by climate change, coral reefs are sensitive to anomalously high temperatures which disassociate (bleaching) photosynthetic symbionts (Symbiodinium) from coral hosts and cause increasingly frequent and severe mass mortality events. Susceptibility to bleaching and mortality is variable among corals, and is determined by unknown proportions of environmental history and the synergy of Symbiodinium- and coral-specific properties. Symbiodinium live within host tissues overlaying the coral skeleton, which increases light availability through multiple light-scattering, forming one of the most efficient biological collectors of solar radiation. Light-transport in the upper ~200 μm layer of corals skeletons (measured as ‘microscopic’ reduced-scattering coefficient, mu ^{prime}_{{S,m}} ), has been identified as a determinant of excess light increase during bleaching and is therefore a potential determinant of the differential rate and severity of bleaching response among coral species.ResultsHere we experimentally demonstrate (in ten coral species) that, under thermal stress alone or combined thermal and light stress, low- mu ^{prime}_{{S,m}} corals bleach at higher rate and severity than high- mu ^{prime}_{{S,m}} corals and the Symbiodinium associated with low- mu ^{prime}_{{S,m}} corals experience twice the decrease in photochemical efficiency. We further modelled the light absorbed by Symbiodinium due to skeletal-scattering and show that the estimated skeleton-dependent light absorbed by Symbiodinium (per unit of photosynthetic pigment) and the temporal rate of increase in absorbed light during bleaching are several fold higher in low- mu ^{prime}_{{S,m}} corals.ConclusionsWhile symbionts associated with low- mu ^{prime}_{{S,m}} corals receive less total light from the skeleton, they experience a higher rate of light increase once bleaching is initiated and absorbing bodies are lost; further precipitating the bleaching response. Because microscopic skeletal light-scattering is a robust predictor of light-dependent bleaching among the corals assessed here, this work establishes mu ^{prime}_{{S,m}} as one of the key determinants of differential bleaching response.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12898-016-0061-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
At the forefront of ecosystems adversely affected by climate change, coral reefs are sensitive to anomalously high temperatures which disassociate photosynthetic symbionts (Symbiodinium) from coral hosts and cause increasingly frequent and severe mass mortality events
Corals are highly complex structures, the variability detected in repeated measurements of μ′S,m, diffuse reflectance of light from coral skeletons (RS), and holobiont reflectance (RH) is sufficiently small that we assume colonies can be characterized by mean values
We developed an empirical model of light absorption by Symbiodinium in hospite by considering symbiont light-absorption (Ia) as the sum of skeleton-independent absorption (Ia1) of downwelling light and skeletondependent absorption (Ia2) of reflected light [15,16,17]
Summary
At the forefront of ecosystems adversely affected by climate change, coral reefs are sensitive to anomalously high temperatures which disassociate (bleaching) photosynthetic symbionts (Symbiodinium) from coral hosts and cause increasingly frequent and severe mass mortality events. Symbiodinium live within host tissues overlaying the coral skeleton, which increases light availability through multiple light-scattering, forming one of the most efficient biological collectors of solar radiation. Symbiodinium live within host tissues overlaying the coral skeleton, which can significantly increase light availability to symbionts through multiple scattering [15,16,17,18, 27], and together with within-tissue scatter and dynamic light redistribution (due to tissue contraction and scattering or absorption by host fluorescent pigments) [19, 28] form one of the most efficient biological collectors of solar radiation [15, 29]. RS includes the effect of μ′S,m, it is primarily determined by μ′S, absorption, and overall coral morphology [15, 18, 27, 29,30,31]
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