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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Adriana Humanes SchumannORCiD, Dr Liam Lachs, Elizabeth Beauchamp, Professor John BythellORCiD, Emeritus Professor Alasdair Edwards, Dr Pawel PalmowskiORCiD, Dr James Guest
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Coral reefs are facing unprecedented mass bleaching and mortality events due to marine heatwaves and climate change. To avoid extirpation, corals must adapt. Individual variation in heat tolerance and its heritability underpin the potential for coral adaptation. However, the magnitude of heat tolerance variability within coral populations is largely unresolved. We address this knowledge gap by exposing corals from a single reef to an experimental marine heatwave. We found that double the heat stress dosage was required to induce bleaching in the most-tolerant 10%, compared to the least-tolerant 10% of the population. By the end of the heat stress exposure, all of the least tolerant corals were dead, whereas the most-tolerant remained alive. To contextualize the scale of this result over the coming century, we show that under an ambitious future emissions scenario, such differences in coral heat tolerance thresholds equate to up to 17 years delay until the onset of annual bleaching and mortality conditions. However, this delay is limited to only 10 years under a high emissions scenario. Our results show substantial variability in coral heat tolerance which suggests scope for natural or assisted evolution to limit the impacts of climate change in the short-term. For coral reefs to persist through the coming century, coral adaptation must keep pace with ocean warming, and ambitious emissions reductions must be realized.
Author(s): Humanes A, Lachs L, Beauchamp EA, Bythell JC, Edwards AJ, Golbuu Y, Martinez HM, Palmowski P, Treuman A, van der Steeg E, van Hooidonk R, Guest JR
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Year: 2022
Volume: 289
Issue: 1981
Online publication date: 31/08/2022
Acceptance date: 08/08/2022
Date deposited: 14/09/2022
ISSN (print): 0962-8452
ISSN (electronic): 1471-2954
Publisher: The Royal Society Publishing
URL: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.0872
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0872
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