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

石珊瑚是珊瑚礁生态系统的基础，由于包括海洋表面温度上升在内的一系列环境条件，它们的数量正面临显著下降。这些温暖的水域正在导致传染病暴发的发生增加，以及导致珊瑚漂白的强烈高温时段的增加。加勒比地区持续爆发的毁灭性疾病，加上2023年夏季的高温，使加勒比珊瑚暴露在致命压力的独特组合之下。研究小组正在利用这些环境条件以及稳健的历史数据，来研究珊瑚漂白与疾病易感性之间的联系的机制。这些数据提供了关于珊瑚复原力的新见解，以改善对这些重要生态系统的管理和养护，该小组正直接与实践者合作，传播项目成果。该项目还为少数族裔服务机构的多名本科生提供研究和教育机会。近几十年来，由于各种人为应激源，硬性珊瑚面临着严重的死亡，最突出的是海洋表面温度上升和动物流行病暴发的相互作用的应激源。值得注意的是，导致珊瑚漂白和珊瑚疾病暴发的热异常往往是相互关联的，有时是不同步的模式。加勒比地区的珊瑚一直在经历一种新疾病(石珊瑚组织丧失疾病，SCTLD)的严重死亡。此外，2023年夏季创纪录的高温引发了一场大规模的区域范围内的漂白事件。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，研究珊瑚中热应激反应与疾病易感性之间的联系机制。该团队正在监测和采样已知的从漂白高峰期到恢复期间一年内抗SCTLD的珊瑚，跟踪漂白和疾病结果、宿主免疫/生理和共生菌群落(微生物和光共生菌)。这些数据正在与最初SCTLD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。这项研究的结果为珊瑚白化和疾病易感性之间的细胞机制提供了前所未有的新见解，提高了对海洋生物多应激源反应的总体理解。该奖项反映了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。

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.