Abstract
Concern over rapid environmental shifts associated with climate change has led to a search for molecular markers of environmental tolerance. Climate‐associated gene expression profiles exist for a number of systems, but have rarely been tied to fitness outcomes, especially in nonmodel organisms. We reciprocally transplanted corals between two backreef locations with more and less variable temperature regimes to disentangle effects of recent and native environment on survival and growth. Coral growth over 12 months was largely determined by local environment. Survival, however, was impacted by native environment; corals from the more variable environment had 22% higher survivorship. By contrast, corals native to the less variable environment had more variable survival. This might represent a “selective sieve” where poor survivors are filtered from the more stressful environment. We also find a potential fitness trade‐off—corals with high survival under stressful conditions grew less in the more benign environment. Transcriptome samples taken a year before transplantation were used to examine gene expression patterns that predicted transplant survival and growth. Two separate clusters of coexpressed genes were predictive of survival in the two locations. Genes from these clusters are candidate biomarkers for predicting persistence of corals under future climate change scenarios.
Highlights
As climate change affects global ecosystems, many species are faced with the need to move, acclimate, or adapt
An increasing number of studies, have shown the capacity for this group to adjust individual physiology through acclimation, and for populations to evolve via natural selection to different temperature regimes (Bay & Palumbi, 2014; Dixon et al, 2015; Howells, Berkelmans, van Oppen, Willis, & Bay, 2013). These processes are often reflected on the transcriptome level—gene expression profiles associated with increased tolerance to high temperatures have been shown in a number of coral species (Bay & Palumbi, 2015; Dixon et al, 2015; Palumbi et al, 2014; Seneca & Palumbi, 2015)
Our data show trade-offs between high survival in stressful conditions versus high growth in more benign conditions for the tabletop coral Acropora hyacinthus in different thermal environments. We show that this complex life history trade-off is paralleled by gene expression variation in a single coexpressed gene cluster that might be developed as a biomarker for expected fitness of these corals in future conditions
Summary
As climate change affects global ecosystems, many species are faced with the need to move, acclimate, or adapt. Quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping has been used in a number of systems, to find genomic regions that predict fitness measures in different environments (Dittmar, Oakley, Ågren, & Schemske, 2014; Hancock et al, 2011a; Lasky et al, 2015) These methods, are most promising for traits encoded by few loci of large effect and demand breeding studies of closely related individuals. An increasing number of studies, have shown the capacity for this group to adjust individual physiology through acclimation, and for populations to evolve via natural selection to different temperature regimes (Bay & Palumbi, 2014; Dixon et al, 2015; Howells, Berkelmans, van Oppen, Willis, & Bay, 2013) These processes are often reflected on the transcriptome level—gene expression profiles associated with increased tolerance to high temperatures have been shown in a number of coral species (Bay & Palumbi, 2015; Dixon et al, 2015; Palumbi et al, 2014; Seneca & Palumbi, 2015). We show that this complex life history trade-off is paralleled by gene expression variation in a single coexpressed gene cluster that might be developed as a biomarker for expected fitness of these corals in future conditions
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