Repetitive sex change in the stony coral Herpolitha limax across a wide geographic range
Repetitive sex change in the stony coral Herpolitha limax across a wide geographic range
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DOI：
10.1038/s41598-018-37619-y
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发表时间：
2019-02-27
影响因子：
4.6
通讯作者：
Loya, Yossi
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Eyal-Shaham, Lee;Eyal, Gal;Loya, Yossi
性别变化在动物和植物中得到了广泛的研究。然而，有利于性别变化的条件，其模式和时间仍然知之甚少。在这里，我们首次在石珊瑚中报告了真菌珊瑚Herpolitha limax在大空间尺度（日本，约旦和以色列的珊瑚礁）和时间尺度（2004-2017）上表现出的雄性（最年轻的个体是男性）重复性变化。与大多数珊瑚相反，这个物种是白天产卵者（08：00-10：00 AM），在所有研究地点的同一时间/同一日期产卵。散在分布的H.在埃拉特（以色列）和亚喀巴（约旦）的珊瑚礁中，与冲绳（日本）密集聚集的种群相比，顶极群落的生长速度明显较慢，性别变化较早，生殖和性别变化的百分比较低。在所有地点，性别比例随年份而变化，但几乎总是偏向男性。生长速度随体积的增大而降低。我们的结论是，雌雄异株植物显示不稳定的性反应的能量和/或环境的限制，重复的性别变化显示的H。limax增加了它的整体适应性，加强了生殖可塑性在决定其进化成功的刺胞动物门中的重要作用。
Sex change has been widely studied in animals and plants. However, the conditions favoring sex change, its mode and timing remain poorly known. Here, for the first time in stony corals, we report on a protandrous (youngest individuals are males) repetitive sex change exhibited by the fungiid coral Herpolitha limax across large spatial scales (the coral reefs of Japan, Jordan and Israel) and temporal scales (2004-2017). In contrast to most corals, this species is a daytime spawner (08:00-10:00 AM) that spawned at the same time/same date across all the study sites. The sporadically scattered populations of H. limax among the coral reefs of Eilat (Israel) and Aqaba (Jordan) exhibited significantly slower growth, earlier sex change, and lower percentages of reproduction and sex change in comparison to the densely aggregated populations in Okinawa (Japan). At all sites, sex ratio varied among years, but was almost always biased towards maleness. Growth rate decreased with size. We conclude that comparable to dioecious plants that display labile sexuality in response to energetic and/or environmental constraints, the repetitive sex change displayed by H. limax increases its overall fitness reinforcing the important role of reproductive plasticity in the Phylum Cnidaria in determining their evolutionary success.