Picking climate change winners for assisted gene flow interventions on coral reefs

面对全球气候变化，生物多样性保护最重要的问题之一是物种是否会适应、适应、迁移或灭绝。AGF涉及个体在物种范围内种群之间的故意移动，以增加更好适应基因型的频率。AGF可以与具有某些适应性表型性状（例如，耐热性提高）的亲本后代的选择性育种相结合。这些方法已被建议作为某些经济上重要的生态系统（如珊瑚礁）的开创性保护工具。这两种方法都需要确定“优胜者”，即预先适应以应对预期未来条件的自然发生的基因型。如果成功，这些技术可以为已经受到气候变化干扰的巨大风险的珊瑚礁争取时间。作为ERC资助的5年项目（Coralassist）的一部分，我们正在通过热应力试验确定密克罗尼西亚帕劳珊瑚种群的耐热性变化。我们正在研究选择性繁殖的珊瑚是否可以大量迁移到珊瑚礁上，以及耐热性是否可遗传。使用尖端的蛋白质组学，我们正在确定耐热性变化的潜在原因。使用途径分析（例如，String, PathVisio）检查热应激处理之间不同的蛋白质，以确定与给定蛋白质集和蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用和关联相关的生物过程，分子功能。该项目的目的是开发耐受性指标，因为它与蛋白质丰度有关，最终目标是开发标记物，以确定AGF计划的耐受性基因型，而无需进行热应激试验。

One of the most important questions for biodiversity conservation in the face of global climate change is whether species will adapt, acclimatise, migrate or be extirpated. AGF involves the deliberate movement of individuals between populations within species ranges to increase the frequency of better adapted genotypes. AGF can be coupled with selective breeding of offspring from parents with certain adaptive phenotypic traits (e.g., elevated heat resistance). These approaches have been suggested as ground-breaking conservation tools in certain economically important ecosystems such as coral reefs. Both approaches require identification of "winners", i.e., naturally occurring genotypes preadapted to cope with anticipated future conditions. If successful, these techniques could buy time for coral reefs already at great risk from climate change disturbances. As part of a 5-year ERC funded project (Coralassist) we are identifying variation in heat resistance within populations of corals in Palau, Micronesia using thermal stress trials. We are examining whether selectively bred corals can be translocated to reefs in sufficiently large numbers and whether heat resistance is heritable. Using cutting edge proteomics we are identifying underlying causes of variation in heat resistance. Proteins that differ between heat stress treatments are examined using pathway analysis, (e.g., String, PathVisio) to identify biological processes, molecular functions associated with a given set of proteins and protein - protein interactions and associations. The aim of this project would be to develop tolerance indicators as it relates to protein abundance with the ultimate goal of developing markers to identify tolerant genotypes for AGF programmes without the need for heat stress trials.