COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Investigating the genomic basis of key performance traits to quantify the evolutionary potential of coral populations under climate change

面对环境压力的冲击，世界各地的热带珊瑚礁近年来急剧减少，特别是在加勒比地区。为了帮助恢复珊瑚礁生态系统的结构和功能，管理人员建立了水中苗圃，专门繁殖几种珊瑚，特别是濒临灭绝的鹿角珊瑚。在NSF综合活动办公室生物海洋学计划、综合生态生理学计划和NSF 2026 IDEA机器基金计划的支持下，该项目旨在通过研究遗传和环境之间的相互作用如何影响珊瑚的性能和热弹性，填补我们在理解鹿角珊瑚适应能力方面的关键知识空白。对这些相互作用的洞察，关键健康特征所涉及的基因，以及苗圃饲养对珊瑚性能的影响，为试图保护和恢复珊瑚礁生态系统的管理者提供了信息。通过与自然资源保护者、水族馆和政府机构的沟通，将结果直接传达给利益相关者和从业者。珊瑚耐热性野外测试仪器是由谢德青少年学习实验室的高中生建造和编程的，拟议的研究直接涉及南加州大学、南佛罗里达大学和迈阿密大学的研究生和本科生。通过在洛杉矶的加州科学中心、芝加哥的谢德水族馆和迈阿密的弗罗斯特科学博物馆开展更多的外联活动，促进了更广泛的公众参与。该项目是迄今为止对造礁珊瑚物种适应能力进行的最全面的调查之一。加勒比珊瑚礁的长期持久性最终将取决于剩余的自然珊瑚种群和恢复的珊瑚种群是否有足够的遗传多样性和表型复原力，以便在快速变化的气候中生存和繁殖。该项目旨在量化群体之间的表现差异，确定耐热性和其他特征之间的潜在权衡，并确定最有可能在气候变化下生存并有助于适应潜力的珊瑚基因类型。通过一项首次的相互移植实验，正在评估关键表型之间的遗传性、可塑性和权衡，该实验跨越了跨越450公里的大温度梯度的巴哈马珊瑚苗圃网络。通过对移位珊瑚进行的一系列热应激实验，量化了耐热性和弹性之间的关系，以及这些特征在环境中的灵活程度。在经过一年的就地(巴哈马的Eleuthera角研究所)和异地(佛罗里达迈阿密大学的实验孵化厂)常见花园条件的驯化之后，对一系列表型进行了评估，以确定耐热性是否以及在多大程度上是宿主和共生体基因的固定效应，或者可以随着移植到不同的地点而改变。最后，使用定制的珊瑚漂白自主应激系统(CBASS)定量和精确地现场测试了横跨巴哈马群岛整个~900公里温跃层以及附近的佛罗里达州迈阿密-戴德县和布罗沃德县的~260个颈角亚种的耐热性。除了评估宿主和共生体内的精细种群结构外，浅层全基因组重测序还用于识别与热耐性相关的基因座。该项目直接针对IDEA Machine前33个条目中的两个：“想象一个清洁的海洋生活”和“拯救珊瑚礁生态系统”。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Facing an onslaught of environmental stressors, tropical coral reefs around the world have declined dramatically in recent years, particularly in the Caribbean. To help restore the structure and function of coral reef ecosystems, managers have established in-water nurseries specializing in the propagation of several coral species, particularly the endangered staghorn coral, Acropora cervicornis. With support from the Biological Oceanography Program, Integrative Ecological Physiology Program, and the NSF 2026 Idea Machine Fund Program in the NSF Office of Integrated Activities, this project aims to fill critical knowledge gaps in our understanding of the adaptive capacity of staghorn coral by studying how interactions between genetics and environment influence coral performance and thermal resilience. Insights into these interactions, the genes involved in key health traits, and the impacts of nursery rearing on coral performance inform managers attempting to conserve and restore reef ecosystems. Results are communicated directly to stakeholders and practitioners through communication with conservationists, aquariums, and government agencies. The instruments for field-testing coral thermotolerance are built and programmed by high school students in Shedd’s Teen Learning Lab, and the proposed research directly involves graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Southern California, the University of South Florida, and the University of Miami. Broader public engagement is facilitated through additional outreach activities at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, and Frost Science Museum in Miami. This project represents one of the most comprehensive investigations into the adaptive capacity of a reef-building coral species to date.The long-term persistence of Caribbean reefs will ultimately be determined by whether there is sufficient genetic diversity and phenotypic resilience in remaining natural and restored coral populations to survive and reproduce in a rapidly changing climate. This project aims to quantify variation in performance among colonies, determine potential trade-offs between thermal tolerance and other traits, and identify coral genotypes that are most likely to survive under climate change and contribute to adaptive potential. Heritability, plasticity, and trade-offs among key phenotypes are being evaluated using a first-of-its-kind reciprocal transplant experiment across a network of Bahamian coral nurseries spanning a large thermal gradient over 450 km. The relationship between thermal resistance and resilience and the extent to which these traits are environmentally flexible are quantified in a series of heat stress experiments on translocated corals. Following one year of acclimatization to common garden conditions both in situ (at the Cape Eleuthera Institute, The Bahamas) and ex situ (at the University of Miami’s Experimental Hatchery, Florida), a suite of phenotypes are assessed to determine whether, and to what extent, thermal tolerance is a fixed effect of host and symbiont genotype or can change in response to transplantation to different sites. Finally, custom-built Coral Bleaching Autonomous Stress Systems (CBASS) are used to quantitatively and precisely field-test the thermal tolerance of ~260 genets of A. cervicornis spanning the entire ~900-km thermal cline of the Bahamian archipelago and nearby Miami-Dade and Broward Counties in Florida. Shallow whole-genome resequencing is used to identify loci associated with thermal tolerance, in addition to assessing fine-scale population structure within hosts and symbionts.The project directly addresses two of the top thirty-three Idea Machine entries: “Imagine a Life with Clean Oceans” and “Saving Coral Reef Ecosystems."This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.