Brief description
The composition of the microbial communities in the coral Pocillopora acuta were examined following the 2016 bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Corals located within two reefs of the Palm Island archipelago on the Central GBR experienced moderate heat stress,In-water bleaching surveys were conducted at two depths (2 m and 5 m) on the 4th and 6th of April 2016. Five 10 × 1 m belt transects were used with observers capturing 1 m × 1 m square continuous images. Observers counted each coral colony > 5 cm in diameter within each 1 m × 1 m image, recorded:
genus level identification categorical bleaching score based upon the proportion of living coral tissue visibly bleached white:
No bleaching
Pale
1–50% tissue bleached white
51–99% bleached white
100% bleached white with or without intense fluorescence
partial or complete mortality of the colony (recently dead regions of tissue).
Bleaching severity categories at the reef community level were based on the percentage of corals bleached as follows:
no bleaching (0% bleached corals);
minor bleaching (1–10%),
moderate (10–30%);
major (30–60%);
severe (> 60%)
Coral fragments were collected from 22 colonies at Pandora on the 4th April 2016 and from 25 colonies at Havannah on the 12th April 2016
Samples were prepared for DNA extraction and Symbiodiniaceae cell counts as described in (Botte et al. 2021). Surface area of the coral skeletons was estimated using established protocol (Veal et al. 2010). Statistical analysis of DNA sequencing data was conducted using R.
This study was conducted to identify the impact of bleaching severity on the microbiome of the P. acuta coral during the mass bleaching event of summer 2016, at two sampling sites within the Palm Island group (Central GBR). A significant impact of sampling site was found and no effect of bleaching severity, demonstrating the importance of fine-scale sampling when investigating large scale bleaching events.
Lineage
Maintenance and Update Frequency: notPlannedHughes TP, Kerry JT, Álvarez-Noriega M, Álvarez-Romero JG, Anderson KD, Baird AH, Babcock RC, Beger M, Bellwood DR, Berkelmans R, Bridge TC, Butler IR, Byrne M, Cantin NE, Comeau S, Connolly SR, Cumming GS, Dalton SJ, Guillermo Diaz-Pulido C, Eakin M, Figueira WF, Gilmour JP, Harrison HB, Heron SF, Hoey AS, Hobbs J-PA, Hoogenboom MO, Kennedy EV, Kuo C-Y, Lough JM, Lowe RJ, Liu G, McCulloch MT, Malcolm HA, McWilliam MJ, Pandolfi JM, Pears RJ, Pratchett MS, Schoepf V, Simpson T, Skirving WJ, Sommer B, Torda G, Wachenfeld DR, Willis BL, Wilson SK (2017) Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals. Nature 543:373–377 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature21707
Wax dipping technique for surface area estimation protocols: Veal CJ, Holmes G, Nunez M, Hoegh-Guldberg O, Osborn J (2010) A comparative study of methods for surface area and three-dimensional shape measurement of coral skeletons. Limnol Oceanogr Meth 8:241–253
Notes
CreditCantin, N. (AIMS)
O'Brien, PA. (AIMS) and James Cook University (JCU) and AIMS@JCU
Webster, NS. (AIMS), Australian Antarctic Division, University of Queensland (UQ)
Botté, ES. Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) and University of New South Wales (UNSW)
Frade, PR. Natural History Museum Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Moecellin, VL. (AIMS)
Rocker, MM. Deakin University, Victoria
Modified: 12 03 2024
text: westlimit=147.4313056; southlimit=-18.81525; eastlimit=147.4313056; northlimit=-18.81525
text: westlimit=146.5339167; southlimit=-18.83961111; eastlimit=146.5339167; northlimit=-18.83961111
Sea Water Temperature Logger Data At Pandora Reef, From 04 Jul 2007 To 04 Jun 2019
uri :
https://apps.aims.gov.au/metadata/view/8E75CB5F-62AD-1BA7-E054-0010E056919A
Microbiome of reef-building coral Pocillopora acuta on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia (Havannah Island and Pandora reefs) during coral bleaching in 2016 - NCBI Sequence Reads Archive (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra) under submission PRJNA743719
uri :
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJNA743719/
Sea Water Temperature Logger Data At Havannah Island, From 03 Jul 2007 To 13 May 2021
uri :
https://apps.aims.gov.au/metadata/view/871c8762-45a6-41f6-9bd5-1c05b1fcfd89
- global : 0ff3a65f-6ee9-4448-bfff-8ae3c86b6115