Uncovering Spatio-Temporal and Treatment-Derived Differences in the Molecular Physiology of a Model Coral-Dinoflagellate Mutualism with Multivariate Statistical Approaches

Mayfield, Anderson B.

doi:10.3390/jmse4030063

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 39 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Although a Bonferroni adjustment may suffice in controlling for type I statistical errors, MSA can uncover relationships amongst response variables that are not evident from univariate-based statistics alone, while doing so at a lower false positive error rate [ 32 ]. Several MSA were taken herein to understand the relationship between environment and coral physiology.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying corals displaying aberrant behavior in Fiji’s Lau Archipelago

2017

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Given the numerous threats against Earth’s coral reefs, there is an urgent need to develop means of assessing reef coral health on a proactive timescale. Molecular biomarkers may prove useful in this endeavor because their expression should theoretically undergo changes prior to visible signs of health decline, such as the breakdown of the coral-dinoflagellate (genus Symbiodinium) endosymbiosis. Herein 13 molecular- and physiological-scale biomarkers spanning both eukaryotic compartments of the anthozoan-Symbiodinium mutualism were assessed across 70 pocilloporid coral colonies sampled from reefs of Fiji’s easternmost province, Lau. Eleven colonies were identified as outliers upon employment of a detection method based partially on the Mahalanobis distance; these corals were hypothesized to have been displaying aberrant sub-cellular behavior with respect to their gene expression signatures, as they were characterized not only by lower Symbiodinium densities, but also by higher levels of expression of several stress-targeted genes. Although these findings could suggest that the sampled colonies were physiologically compromised at the time of sampling, further studies are warranted to state conclusively whether these 11 scleractinian coral colonies are more stress-prone than nearby conspecifics that demonstrated statistically normal phenotypes.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying corals displaying aberrant behavior in Fiji’s Lau Archipelago

2017

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…With these physiological data in hand (summarized in Table 1 ), a global team of researchers from Taiwan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere has spent the past decade attempting to gain a better understanding of how these, as well as other Southern Taiwanese coral-dinoflagellate endosymbioses (namely Pocillopora acuta and Stylophora pistillata ) from oceanographically distinct environments, acclimate to changes in temperature in the laboratory [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ], as well as acclimatize to such environmental heterogeneity and perturbation in the field [ 28 ]. As part of these efforts, it was found that variable temperature exposure can thermally harden corals to where they better withstand future increases in temperature [ 29 ], a finding later corroborated by other researchers [ 30 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proteomic Signatures of Corals from Thermodynamic Reefs

Mayfield

2020

Microorganisms

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Unlike most parts of the world, coral reefs of Taiwan’s deep south have generally been spared from climate change-induced degradation. This has been linked to the oceanographically unique nature of Nanwan Bay, where intense upwelling occurs. Specifically, large-amplitude internal waves cause shifts in temperature of 6–9 °C over the course of several hours, and the resident corals not only thrive under such conditions, but they have also been shown to withstand multi-month laboratory incubations at experimentally elevated temperatures. To gain insight into the sub-cellular basis of acclimation to upwelling, proteins isolated from reef corals (Seriatopora hystrix) featured in laboratory-based reciprocal transplant studies in which corals from upwelling and non-upwelling control reefs (<20 km away) were exposed to stable or variable temperature regimes were analyzed via label-based proteomics (iTRAQ). Corals exposed to their “native” temperature conditions for seven days (1) demonstrated highest growth rates and (2) were most distinct from one another with respect to their protein signatures. The latter observation was driven by the fact that two Symbiodiniaceae lipid trafficking proteins, sec1a and sec34, were marginally up-regulated in corals exposed to their native temperature conditions. Alongside the marked degree of proteomic “site fidelity” documented, this dataset sheds light on the molecular mechanisms underlying acclimatization to thermodynamically extreme conditions in situ.

show abstract

“…Briefly, both univariate and multivariate statistical approaches were exploited because it was hypothesized that statistically significant, biologically meaningful differences in molecular physiology might not be identified using only the former strategy. For instance, MANOVA can identify combinations of response variables that best partition samples from different environments, even when the underlying response variables show no environmental variation when analyzed in isolation with ANOVA [ 35 ]. JMP (ver.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biomarker profiling in reef corals of Tonga’s Ha’apai and Vava’u archipelagos

2017

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Given the significant threats towards Earth’s coral reefs, there is an urgent need to document the current physiological condition of the resident organisms, particularly the reef-building scleractinians themselves. Unfortunately, most of the planet’s reefs are understudied, and some have yet to be seen. For instance, the Kingdom of Tonga possesses an extensive reef system, with thousands of hectares of unobserved reefs; little is known about their ecology, nor is there any information on the health of the resident corals. Given such knowledge deficiencies, 59 reefs across three Tongan archipelagos were surveyed herein, and pocilloporid corals were sampled from approximately half of these surveyed sites; 10 molecular-scale response variable were assessed in 88 of the sampled colonies, and 12 colonies were found to be outliers based on employment of a multivariate statistics-based aberrancy detection system. These outliers differed from the statistically normally behaving colonies in having not only higher RNA/DNA ratios but also elevated expression levels of three genes: 1) Symbiodinium zinc-induced facilitator-like 1-like, 2) host coral copper-zinc superoxide dismutase, and 3) host green fluorescent protein-like chromoprotein. Outliers were also characterized by significantly higher variation amongst the molecular response variables assessed, and the response variables that contributed most significantly to colonies being delineated as outliers differed between the two predominant reef coral species sampled, Pocillopora damicornis and P. acuta. These closely related species also displayed dissimilar temporal fluctuation patterns in their molecular physiologies, an observation that may have been driven by differences in their feeding strategies. Future works should attempt to determine whether corals displaying statistically aberrant molecular physiology, such as the 12 Tongan outliers identified herein, are indeed characterized by a diminished capacity for acclimating to the rapid changes in their abiotic milieu occurring as a result of global climate change.

show abstract

Uncovering Spatio-Temporal and Treatment-Derived Differences in the Molecular Physiology of a Model Coral-Dinoflagellate Mutualism with Multivariate Statistical Approaches

Cited by 11 publications

References 39 publications

Identifying corals displaying aberrant behavior in Fiji’s Lau Archipelago

Identifying corals displaying aberrant behavior in Fiji’s Lau Archipelago

Proteomic Signatures of Corals from Thermodynamic Reefs

Biomarker profiling in reef corals of Tonga’s Ha’apai and Vava’u archipelagos

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About