[Coral-List] thermal tolerance in Palau's Rock Islands

[Anne L Cohen]

Dear Listers


We're happy to share our open access article "Palau's warmest reefs harbor thermally tolerant corals that thrive across different habitats"  (Commun Biol 5, 1394, 2022).

We combined skeletal and tissue analyses of individual colonies of Porites cf. lobata to identify thermally tolerant genotypes, track their distribution across Palau's reefs, and examine potential growth trade-offs with temperature tolerance.  Four genetic lineages were identified, two of which exhibit enhanced thermal tolerance based on the absence of bleaching-induced stress bands in their skeletal cores. Both thermally tolerant lineages are concentrated in the Rock Islands where baseline temperatures are chronically high, and heatwave anomalies exceed those on the outer reefs. Conversely, thermally sensitive lineages are found mainly on Palau's outer reefs.  A subset of colonies sampled on the outer reefs belong to a thermally tolerant lineage, and they maintain their bleaching resistance in this habitat with no growth trade off. Our findings suggest that chronic heat may facilitate adaptation of populations to heatwave anomalies, and that Palau's Rock Islands may be a source of thermally tolerant larvae to neighboring reefs.

Please reach out if you have any trouble accessing the paper,

Hanny and Anne on behalf of co-authors

https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-022-04315-7