RAPID: Leveraging a Natural Bleaching Event to Assess Links between Bleaching and Disease

RAPID：利用自然漂白事件评估漂白与疾病之间的联系

• 批准号: 2347450
• 负责人: Lauren Fuess
• 金额: $ 19.91万
• 依托单位: Texas State University - San Marcos
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-11-01 至 2024-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2347450&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Leveraging; Natural; Bleaching; Event

Stony corals, the foundation of coral reef ecosystems, are facing significant population declines due to a range of environmental conditions, including increasing sea surface temperatures. These warmer waters are leading to a rise in the occurrence of infectious disease outbreaks and increased periods of intense high temperatures that result in coral bleaching. The ongoing devastating disease outbreak in the Caribbean coupled with the high temperatures of summer 2023 have exposed Caribbean corals to a unique combination of deadly stressors. The research team is leveraging these environmental conditions, along with robust historical data, to investigate the mechanisms which link coral bleaching to disease susceptibility. These data provide novel insight regarding coral resilience to improve management and conservation of these important ecosystems and the team is working directly with practitioners to disseminate project results. The project also provides research and educational opportunities for multiple undergraduate students at minority serving institutions. Scleractinian corals have faced significant mortality in recent decades due to a diversity of anthropogenic stressors, most prominently the interacting stressors of rising sea surface temperatures and epizootic outbreaks. Notably, thermal anomalies resulting in coral bleaching and coral disease outbreaks are often linked, sometimes in asynchronous patterns. Corals in the Caribbean have been experiencing a significant mortality from a novel disease (Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, SCTLD). Additionally, record high temperatures in summer 2023 have triggered a massive region-wide bleaching event. This project leverages these unique ongoing environmental conditions, combined with a robust historical physiological data set, to investigate the mechanisms linking thermal stress response to disease susceptibility in corals. The team is monitoring and sampling corals known to be SCTLD-resistant for one year from the peak of bleaching through recovery, tracking bleaching & disease outcomes, host immunity/physiology, and symbiont communities (microbiome and photosymbiont). These data are being compared to historical physiological data collected before and during the initial SCTLD outbreak to characterize the mechanisms linking bleaching recovery to disease susceptibility. The results of this study provide unprecedented new insights regarding the cellular mechanisms linking bleaching and disease susceptibility in corals, improving general understanding of multi-stressor response in marine organisms.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.

作为珊瑚礁生态系统基础的石珊瑚，由于一系列环境条件，包括海洋表面温度的上升，正面临着数量大幅下降的问题。这些温暖的沃茨导致传染病爆发的发生率上升，并导致珊瑚漂白的强烈高温时期增加。加勒比地区持续爆发的毁灭性疾病，加上2023年夏季的高温，使加勒比海珊瑚暴露于致命压力的独特组合。研究小组正在利用这些环境条件，沿着强大的历史数据，调查珊瑚漂白与疾病易感性之间的联系机制。这些数据提供了关于珊瑚恢复力的新见解，以改善这些重要生态系统的管理和保护，该团队正在直接与从业人员合作，传播项目成果。该项目还为少数民族服务机构的多名本科生提供研究和教育机会。近几十年来，由于各种各样的人为压力，最突出的是海面温度上升和动物流行病爆发的相互作用的压力，硬珊瑚面临着显着的死亡率。值得注意的是，导致珊瑚白化的热异常和珊瑚疾病的爆发往往是相互关联的，有时是异步模式。加勒比地区的珊瑚因一种新疾病（石珊瑚组织丧失病）而死亡率很高。此外，2023年夏季创纪录的高温引发了大规模的区域性漂白事件。该项目利用这些独特的持续环境条件，结合强大的历史生理数据集，研究珊瑚热应激反应与疾病易感性之间的联系机制。该团队正在对已知具有SCTLD抗性的珊瑚进行为期一年的监测和采样，从漂白高峰到恢复，跟踪漂白疾病的结果，宿主免疫/生理学和共生体群落（微生物组和光共生体）。这些数据正在与在最初的SCREONS爆发之前和期间收集的历史生理数据进行比较，以表征将漂白恢复与疾病易感性联系起来的机制。这项研究的结果提供了前所未有的新的见解有关的细胞机制链接漂白和疾病的易感性在珊瑚，提高了海洋生物的多应激反应的一般理解。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得支持的评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。