RAPID: Collaborative Proposal: Dynamics of storm-mediated asexual reproduction in Florida Keys corals post-Hurricane Irma

造礁珊瑚可以通过破碎过程进行无性繁殖。无性系繁殖可以维持种群丰度，尽管有性繁殖能力差，这是佛罗里达群岛主要造礁珊瑚物种的一个长期问题。因此，了解无性（克隆）繁殖的生态动态对于预测珊瑚礁的未来和规划保护工作至关重要。该项目将利用飓风Irma对佛罗里达群岛珊瑚礁造成的广泛物理破坏来表征风暴驱动的碎片化程度，量化碎片存活率，并将结果与现有丰富珊瑚物种的克隆结构进行比较。通过将详细的现场调查与新颖的基因组工具相结合，该项目将首次评估在过去25年中影响佛罗里达群岛的最重大干扰事件之后，在社区层面上控制珊瑚克隆繁殖的生态动态。研究人员是恢复遗传学工作组的成员，该工作组是加勒比珊瑚恢复联盟的一部分，并将利用这一渠道向相关利益攸关方介绍结果。本科生和研究生研究人员将参与该项目的各个方面。研究结果还将通过开放讲座系列和基于社交媒体的外展活动与更广泛的公众分享，以增加对珊瑚生态的了解，以及影响珊瑚礁衰退的因素。为了促进快速数据共享，本项目产生的手稿将发布到预印本服务器上，数据和计算方法将在开放存取存储库上免费提供。对于佛罗里达群岛的一些关键造礁珊瑚，如Acropora和Orbicella spp，无性繁殖仍然是补充当地种群的唯一选择。该项目将利用飓风“厄玛”造成的物理破坏来测试有关影响碎片介导的无性珊瑚繁殖率的因素的具体假设。本项目结合珊瑚破碎和碎片生存调查，对碎片和整个当地珊瑚群落进行全面的基因分型，以确定自然克隆并将碎片归为源群落。该项目将测试飓风驱动的破碎和生存模式是否与现有珊瑚物种的克隆结构相关，以评估风暴对佛罗里达珊瑚无性繁殖的长期影响。该项目还将确定无性繁殖是否更多地取决于初始碎片率或碎片存活率。最后，本项目将研究片段存活率与源克隆群大小之间的关系。正相关关系可能表明自然选择增加了无性繁殖，这意味着佛罗里达群岛的珊瑚礁正在向更高的无性繁殖进化。

Reef-building corals can reproduce clonally through the process of fragmentation. Clonal reproduction can maintain population abundance in spite of poor sexual reproduction, a chronic problem for major reef-building coral species in the Florida Keys. Understanding the ecological dynamics of asexual (clonal) reproduction is therefore essential for predicting the reefs' future and planning of conservation efforts. This project will take advantage of the extensive physical damage to reefs in the Florida Keys caused by Hurricane Irma to characterize the extent of storm-driven fragmentation, quantify the rate of fragment survival, and compare the results to the existing clonal structure of abundant coral species. By combining detailed site surveys with novel genomic tools, this project will be the first to assess the ecological dynamics governing clonal reproduction of corals on a community-level following the most significant disturbance event to impact the Florida Keys in the last 25 years. The investigators are members of the Restoration Genetics Working Group, a part of the Caribbean Coral Restoration Consortium and will utilize this channel to present results to relevant stake-holders. Undergraduate and graduate student researchers will participate in all aspects of this project. Results will also be shared with the broader public through open-access lecture series and social-media based outreach initiatives to increase knowledge of coral ecology, and factors affecting reef decline. To promote rapid data sharing, manuscripts resulting from this project will be posted to preprint servers and both data and computational methods will be made freely available on open access repositories.For several key reef-building corals in the Florida Keys, such as Acropora and Orbicella spp., asexual reproduction remains the only option to replenish local populations. This project will capitalize on the physical damage caused by Hurricane Irma to test specific hypotheses about factors affecting the rate of fragmentation-mediated asexual coral reproduction. This project combines surveys of coral fragmentation and fragment survival with comprehensive genotyping of fragments and the whole local coral community to identify natural clones and attribute fragments to source colonies. This project will test whether hurricane-driven fragmentation and survival patterns correlate with the existing clonal structure across coral species, to evaluate the long-term impact of storms in contributing to asexual propagation of Florida corals. This project will also determine whether asexual reproduction depends more on the rate of initial fragmentation or the rate of fragment survival. Finally, this project will investigate the relationship between fragment survival rate and the size of the source clonal group. A positive relationship could indicate natural selection for increased asexual reproduction, implying that Florida Keys reefs are evolving towards higher asexuality.