High salinity conveys thermotolerance in the coral model Aiptasia
Type
ArticleAuthors
Gegner, HagenZiegler, Maren

Radecker, Nils
Buitrago-López, Carol

Aranda, Manuel

Voolstra, Christian R.

KAUST Department
Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) DivisionMarine Science Program
Red Sea Research Center (RSRC)
Reef Genomics Lab
KAUST Grant Number
FCC/1/1973-22-01Date
2017-11-24Online Publication Date
2017-11-24Print Publication Date
2017-12-15Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/626411
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The endosymbiosis between dinoflagellate algae of the genus Symbiodinium and stony corals provides the foundation of coral reef ecosystems. Coral bleaching, the expulsion of endosymbionts from the coral host tissue as a consequence of heat or light stress, poses a threat to reef ecosystem functioning on a global scale. Hence, a better understanding of the factors contributing to heat stress susceptibility and tolerance is needed. In this regard, some of the most thermotolerant corals also live in particularly saline habitats, but possible effects of high salinity on thermotolerance in corals are anecdotal. Here we test the hypothesis that high salinity may lead to increased thermotolerance. We conducted a heat stress experiment at low, intermediate, and high salinities using a set of host-endosymbiont combinations of the coral model Aiptasia. As expected, all host-endosymbiont combinations showed reduced photosynthetic efficiency and endosymbiont loss during heat stress, but the severity of bleaching was significantly reduced with increasing salinities for one of the host-endosymbiont combinations. Our results show that higher salinities can convey increased thermotolerance in Aiptasia, although this effect seems to be dependent on the particular host strain and/or associated symbiont type. This finding may help explain the extraordinarily high thermotolerance of corals in high salinity environments such as the Red Sea and the Persian/Arabian Gulf and provides novel insight regarding factors that contribute to thermotolerance. Since our results are based on a salinity effect in symbiotic sea anemones, it remains to be determined whether this salinity effect can also be observed in stony corals.Citation
Gegner HM, Ziegler M, Rädecker N, Buitrago-López C, Aranda M, et al. (2017) High salinity conveys thermotolerance in the coral model Aiptasia. Biology Open 6: 1943–1948. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/bio.028878.Sponsors
H.M.G. and C.R.V. acknowledge funding from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Center Competitive Fund (CCF) program (award number: FCC/1/1973-22-01). Additional funding was provided by baseline funds from KAUST to C.R.V.Publisher
The Company of BiologistsJournal
Biology OpenPubMed ID
29175860Additional Links
http://bio.biologists.org/content/6/12/1943Relations
Is Source Of:- Article
Gegner HM, Voolstra CR (2019) A Salty Coral Secret: How High Salinity Helps Corals To Be Stronger. Frontiers for Young Minds 7. DOI: 10.3389/frym.2019.000388 HANDLE: 10754/631692
ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1242/bio.028878
Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
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