EAPSI: The Effect of Increased Ocean Temperatures on Species Diversity in Cauliflower Corals (Pocillopora spp.)

EAPSI：海洋温度升高对花椰菜珊瑚（Pocillopora spp.）物种多样性的影响

• 批准号: 1514997
• 负责人: Andrea Chan
• 金额: $ 0.51万
• 依托单位: Chan Andrea N
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-06-01 至 2016-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1514997&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAPSI; Effect; Increased; Ocean; Temperatures

Healthy coral ecosystems are beneficial to island nations, providing significant revenue from tourism and protecting their coastlines from erosion due to wave action and storms. In addition, coral reefs support a high diversity of other taxa, and thus maintaining coral ecosystems directly sustains marine biodiversity. Corals are sensitive to changes in their thermal environment, with sustained increases of a few degrees above the summer maximum causing their algal symbionts to leave their tissues (coral bleaching). Reef-building corals rely on these symbionts for a large proportion of their metabolic needs, and if temperatures remain elevated the corals perish. Recent studies have demonstrated the merit of using natural experiments to predict how climate change could affect reefs. Dr. Chaolun Allen Chen of Academia Sinica, has successfully used a high temperature reef site near the outlet of a nuclear power plant in Southern Taiwan to investigate the effects of chronic warm waters on juvenile cauliflower coral (Pocillopora spp.) diversity. This award supports research under Dr. Chen?s mentorship that builds on this work by examining the diversity of the adult cauliflower corals at two sites: one near the nuclear power plant and one farther away with normal water temperatures.For this natural experiment, tissue samples will be collected from both sites, and the mitochondrial open reading frame (ORF) will be sequenced. The ORF regions will be used in subsequent phylogenetic analyses, and the diversity between sites will be compared using standard biodiversity indices. If the relative proportion of Pocillopora species differs between the warm site and the normal temperature site, then this would indicate differential resilience to increased temperatures between species. An absence of significant differences in Pocillopora coral diversity between these sites would point to other mechanisms for maintaining physiological performance (e.g. gene expression, alternate algal symbionts, or microbiomedifferences). Because this coral genus is globally distributed, our findings will be useful for coral conservation beyond the boundaries of Taiwan. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan.

健康的珊瑚生态系统有益于岛屿国家，为旅游业提供大量收入，并保护其海岸线免受海浪和风暴的侵蚀。此外，珊瑚礁支持其他生物分类群的高度多样性，因此，维持珊瑚生态系统直接维持海洋生物多样性。珊瑚对热环境的变化很敏感，温度比夏季最高温度持续升高几度，导致藻类共生体离开其组织（珊瑚白化）。造礁珊瑚依靠这些共生体来满足大部分代谢需求，如果温度继续升高，珊瑚就会死亡。最近的研究表明，利用自然实验来预测气候变化如何影响珊瑚礁是有好处的。中央研究院陈朝艾伦博士利用台湾南部核电厂出口附近的高温礁址，成功研究长期暖沃茨对花椰菜幼珊瑚（Pocilloppora spp.）的影响。多样性该奖项支持陈博士的研究？在这项工作的基础上，通过在两个地点检查成年花椰菜珊瑚的多样性，一个靠近核电站，另一个远离正常水温。对于这项自然实验，将从两个地点收集组织样本，并对线粒体开放阅读框架（ORF）进行测序。ORF区域将用于随后的系统发育分析，并将使用标准的生物多样性指数比较网站之间的多样性。如果Pocilloppora物种的相对比例在温暖的网站和正常温度的网站之间不同，那么这将表明物种之间对温度升高的弹性差异。这些地点之间的Pocillopora珊瑚多样性没有显著差异，这将表明维持生理性能的其他机制（例如基因表达、交替藻类共生体或微生物组差异）。由于此珊瑚属分布于全球，本研究结果将可提供台湾以外地区珊瑚保育之参考。这个NSF EAPSI奖是与台湾科技部合作资助的。