Do reef corals age?

Bythell, John C.; Brown, Barbara E.; Kirkwood, Thomas B. L.

doi:10.1111/brv.12391

Cited by 38 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 126 publications

(132 reference statements)

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“…Among the suite of ecological risk factors that we included in our study, we found that disease risk was consistently higher for larger colonies across host-disease pairs. A positive size-disease relationship has been found in other coral disease studies 15,33,34 and could be associated with exposure area or duration of exposure to potential disease causing agents (biotic or abiotic), or immune function, which is hypothesized to decline with age 35 . Further, a positive relationship between disease prevalence and coral cover has been well established for infectious diseases like tissue loss 13,28,30,31 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Case-control design identifies ecological drivers of endemic coral diseases

Caldwell

Aeby

Heron

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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endemic disease transmission is an important ecological process that is challenging to study because of low occurrence rates. Here, we investigate the ecological drivers of two coral diseases-growth anomalies and tissue loss-affecting five coral species. We first show that a statistical framework called the case-control study design, commonly used in epidemiology but rarely applied to ecology, provided high predictive accuracy (67-82%) and disease detection rates (60-83%) compared with a traditional statistical approach that yielded high accuracy (98-100%) but low disease detection rates (0-17%). Using this framework, we found evidence that 1) larger corals have higher disease risk; 2) shallow reefs with low herbivorous fish abundance, limited water motion, and located adjacent to watersheds with high fertilizer and pesticide runoff promote low levels of growth anomalies, a chronic coral disease; and 3) wave exposure, stream exposure, depth, and low thermal stress are associated with tissue loss disease risk during interepidemic periods. Variation in risk factors across host-disease pairs suggests that either different pathogens cause the same gross lesions in different species or that the same disease may arise in different species under different ecological conditions.Disease is an ecologically and evolutionarily important process in shaping populations, communities, and ecosystems 1-5 , but identifying factors that promote disease at low endemic levels or between epidemics is challenging because disease occurrences are rare in space and time. Disease can affect populations, communities, and ecosystems through multiple pathways, such as changing the physiology, behavior, distribution, abundance, and fitness of organisms (e.g. 3,6,7 ). For example, when the trematode Plagioporous sp. infects the coral Porites compressa it reduces coral growth and causes infected polyps to appear as bright swollen nodules that cannot retract into their skeletal cups, thus increasing fish predation and affecting coral physiology, behavior, and fitness 8 . As another example, infection in three-spined sticklebacks by the fish parasite Gyrodactylus spp. has been shown to alter the zooplankton community structure and nutrient cycling in streams and lakes, which in turn, affect the survival and fitness of the subsequent fish generation 5 . Despite the ecological and evolutionary importance of disease, understanding the factors that increase individual disease risk for endemic diseases with low prevalence or during interepidemic periods for diseases with epidemic cycles can be challenging because of the low probability of observing diseased individuals during non-outbreak periods.With limited occurrence data relative to nonoccurrence data, commonly used biostatistics such as logistic regression can significantly underestimate the probability of rare events such as disease occurrence 9 . Further, such models are likely to have high predictive accuracy (proportion of correctly identified event and nonevent observations), which can be mis...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Case-control design identifies ecological drivers of endemic coral diseases

Caldwell

Aeby

Heron

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…Dendrogyra cylindrus could maintain a positive population growth rate (Riegl et al, 2003) at Los Roques in the absence of a catastrophic event. The unimodality of the size distribution at the MPA scale suggests this subpopulation has not been impacted by episodic disturbances (Edmunds and Elahi, 2007) while the dominance of small and medium size colonies (26 100cm height) suggest a high fecundity potential (Babcock, 1991;Nozawa and Lin, 2014) with lower incidence of partial mortality; conferring potential for intrinsic population growth (Bythell et al, 1993(Bythell et al, , 2018Edmunds and Elahi, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Status of the pillar coralDendrogyra cylindrusin Los Roques National Park, Southern Caribbean

Cavada-Blanco

Cappelletto

Agudo-Adriani

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Information on the status of the pillar coral Dendrogyra cylindrus across its global distribution range is needed to plan and implement effective conservation interventions at both the national and regional level. Knowledge on the species distribution and abundance on the southernmost edge of its range was limited to qualitative data gathered in the 1980s. In 2014, we started using local ecological knowledge and extensive surveys to assess the status of the pillar coral in Archipelago Los Roques National Park, Venezuela; also evaluating the species representativeness within the MPA according to the level of protection established by the park’s zoning. Between 2014 and 2016, we recorded over 1,000 colonies-the highest abundance reported to date for the species- within 14 different habitat types. Disease, bleaching and partial mortality prevalence were below 4%. Size frequency distribution was uni-modal for the MPA and dominated by medium size colonies (40cm -70cm height) suggesting potential for intrinsic population growth. However, the structure of size classes varied among reefs (Pseudo-F=2.70, p=0.03), indicating asynchronous dynamics mostly driven by reef-scale processes. Overall, our results indicate that Los Roques could be a stronghold for the species. But, to maintain the conservation value for coral reefs and the pillar coral, the MPA’s zoning designation needs to be urgently revised and the extension of its high-protection zones expanded to increase habitat redundancy as well as the singular habitats composed by thickets of Acropora cervicornis and mounds of Madracis sp. This work confirms the species as extant in one of the four localities within its national range in Venezuela. However, further research on genetic diversity and connectivity among reefs within the MPA is needed to estimate effective population size and assess viability.

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“…sheep Ovis dalli (Deevey, 1947;Kurtén, 1953;Murie, 1944); alpine marmot Marmota marmota (Berger et al, 2016); and the short-tailed Gómez, Shefferson, & Hutchings, 2013;Thomas, 2002Thomas, , 2013Vaupel 2004) and it remains even less represented among modular animals (but see Bythell, Brown, &Kirkwood, 2018 andTanner, 2001). Within plants,…”

Section: Modularity and Senescence In Animalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing Finch's hypothesis: The role of organismal modularity on the escape from actuarial senescence

2020

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1. Until recently, senescence was assumed to be a universal phenomenon. Evolutionary theories of senescence predict that no organism may escape the physiological decline that results in an increase in mortality risk and/or decline in fertility with age. However, evidence both in animals and plants has emerged in the last decade defying such predictions. Researchers are currently seeking mechanistic explanations for the observed variation in ageing trajectories. 2. We argue that the historical view on the inevitability of senescence is due, in part, to the development of its classical theories, which targeted primarily unitary organisms. In unitary species, the integration of resources and functions is high, and adult size is determined. In contrast, the architecture of modular organisms is indeterminate and built upon repeated modules. The isolation of mortality risk in species like hydra (Hydra spp.) or creosote brush Larrea tridentata may explain their null or even negative senescence. 3. Caleb Finch hypothesized three decades ago that species with the ability to compartmentalize risk may escape senescence. Here, we first review the evidence on organisms that slow down or even avoid senescence in the context of their architecture, along a continuum of unitarity-modularity. Then, we use openaccess databases to comparatively analyse various moments of senescence and link longevity to the degree of anatomical modularity. Our analysis compares the pace of senescence across 138 plants and 151 animals, and the shape of senescence across a subset of these. Our comparative analysis reveals that plant species that are more modular do indeed tend to escape from senescence more often than those that are unitary. The role of modularity in animal senescence is less clear. 4. In light of novel support for Finch's hypothesis across a large diversity of plant species, and with less conclusive findings in animals, we identify new research directions. We highlight the opportunities related to age-dependent mortality factors. Other areas for further research include the role of modularity in relation to endocrine actions, and the costs of modular anatomies.

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Do reef corals age?

Cited by 38 publications

References 126 publications

Case-control design identifies ecological drivers of endemic coral diseases

Case-control design identifies ecological drivers of endemic coral diseases

Status of the pillar coralDendrogyra cylindrusin Los Roques National Park, Southern Caribbean

Testing Finch's hypothesis: The role of organismal modularity on the escape from actuarial senescence

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