RAPID: Tracking Recovery from the 2014 Coral Bleaching Event in Hawaiian Waters: Water Quality Gradients, Ecological Factors, and Reef Resilience to Climate Change

珊瑚礁为数百万与珊瑚有关的物种提供了栖息地，并支持全球数亿人的基本生计。不幸的是，珊瑚礁对海洋温度升高非常敏感，已经显示出热应力事件的重大影响。温暖的天气会导致珊瑚白化，这是一种压力反应，涉及生活在珊瑚细胞内的微小藻类的损失，珊瑚依赖于食物。如果没有这些藻类，许多珊瑚就无法生存，因此，随着漂白事件在变暖的地球上变得更加普遍，珊瑚礁可能会在世界范围内减少。该项目将进一步了解夏威夷主要岛屿沿着不同的珊瑚如何应对漂白并从漂白中恢复（通过重新获得共生藻类）。这些珊瑚礁经历了2014年夏末开始的严重漂白事件。该项目将记录不同种类珊瑚的白化和死亡程度，并使用各种珊瑚健康测量方法跟踪单个珊瑚的恢复情况。通过研究水质不同的珊瑚礁，该研究将研究暴露于更大的陆地污染的珊瑚礁遭受更广泛的漂白，也不太可能从漂白中恢复的想法。该项目还将使用分子方法来识别和比较赋予更大抗漂白性的珊瑚基因。这项研究将解决有关珊瑚漂白的基本科学问题，但也将产生必要的数据，以衡量管理人员和决策者如何以及是否可以通过改善沿海水质来提高珊瑚礁的复原力。这个多学科项目将为一名研究生和一名博士后研究员提供财政支持和培训。科学成果将通过研究人员与当地社区教育计划的持续关系转化为K-12学生，高等教育学员和公众的材料。 夏威夷群岛的珊瑚礁目前正在经历一场严重的漂白事件，这对美国沃茨最大面积的珊瑚礁栖息地的完整性构成了重大威胁，超过了1996年记录的夏威夷唯一一次重大漂白事件的水平。本研究将记录这一事件的异质性，遵循珊瑚礁和殖民地规模的恢复漂白，确定殖民地之间的健身差异的驱动因素，并评估相关的珊瑚礁的敏感性和弹性的背景下，近岸水质作为一种手段，了解陆地为基础的压力对珊瑚的能力，以抵抗和恢复漂白的影响。该研究将侧重于以下目标：（1）记录珊瑚对2014年夏威夷温度异常的反应的空间和分类模式;（2）测试水质与珊瑚礁复原力之间的联系;（3）确定造成漂白反应和恢复异质性的遗传和环境因素。研究人员将部署数据记录仪，并定期采集水样，以记录温度，光照（PAR），沉积物和营养物质浓度，pH值和碱度，在每个地点进行定期视频断面，以捕捉物种和基因型特异性差异对高温异常的反应和恢复，反复分析漂白事件和恢复期间单独标记的珊瑚群落的生理状态，并描述珊瑚全生物基因组和微生物群落组成。

Corals reefs provide habitat for millions of coral-associated species and support the basic livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people globally. Unfortunately, coral reefs are very sensitive to elevated ocean temperatures and are already showing major impacts from thermal stress events. Warm weather can cause coral bleaching, a stress response that involves the loss of the microscopic algae that live inside coral cells and that corals depend on for food. Without these algae, many corals cannot survive such that, as bleaching events become more common on a warming Earth, coral reefs may decline worldwide. This project will further the understanding of how different corals respond to and recover from bleaching (by re-gaining their symbiotic algae) along the coastline of the main Hawaiian Islands. These coral reefs experience a severe bleaching event that started in late summer 2014. This project will document the extent of bleaching and mortality among different species of corals as well as track the recovery of individual corals using a variety of measurements of coral health. By studying reefs that differ in water quality, the research will examine the idea that coral reefs exposed to greater land-based pollution suffer more extensive bleaching and are also less likely to recover from bleaching. The project will also use molecular methods to identify and compare coral genes that confer greater resistance to bleaching. The research will address basic scientific questions about coral bleaching but will also generate data necessary to gauge how and if managers and decision makers can increase coral reef resilience through improvements in coastal water quality. This multi-disciplinary project will provide financial support and training for one graduate student and one postdoctoral researcher. The scientific results will be translated to material for K-12 students, higher education trainees, and the public through the researchers ongoing relationships with local community education programs. Coral reefs of the Hawaiian Islands are currently experiencing a severe bleaching event that poses a substantial threat to the integrity of the largest area of coral reef habitat in US waters, exceeding levels recorded in 1996 during the only major bleaching event previously documented for Hawaii. This study will document the heterogeneity of this event, follow both reef and colony-scale recovery from bleaching, identify the factors driving fitness differences between colonies, and evaluate the correlates of reef sensitivity and resilience against the backdrop of nearshore water quality as a means to understand the impacts of land-based stressors on the abilities of corals to resist and recover from bleaching. The study will focus on the goals of: (1) documenting the spatial and taxonomic patterns of coral responses to the 2014 temperature anomaly in Hawaii; (2) testing the links between water quality and reef resilience; and (3) identifying genetic and environmental factors responsible for heterogeneity in bleaching response and recovery. The researchers will deploy data loggers and take scheduled water samples to record temperature, light (PAR), sediment and nutrient concentrations, pH and alkalinity, conduct periodic video transects at each site to capture species- and genotype-specific differences in response and recovery to the high temperature anomaly, repeatedly assay the physiological state of individually tagged coral colonies during the bleaching event and recovery, and characterize coral holobiont genomes and microbial community composition.