Document of bibliographic reference 396795

BibliographicReference record

Type

Bibliographic resource

Type of document

Journal article

BibLvlCode

AS

Title

Genomic data reveals habitat partitioning in massive Porites on Guam, Micronesia

Abstract

Corals in marginal reef habitats generally exhibit less bleaching and associated mortality compared to nearby corals in more pristine reef environments. It is unclear, however, if these diferences are due to environmental diferences, including turbidity, or genomic diferences between the coral hosts in these diferent environments. One particularly interesting case is in the coral genus Porites, which contains numerous morphologically similar massive Porites species inhabiting a wide range of reef habitats, from turbid river deltas and stagnant back reefs to high-energy fore reefs. Here, we generate ddRAD data for 172 Porites corals from river delta and adjacent (<0.5 km) fore reef populations on Guam to assess the extent of genetic diferentiation among massive Porites corals in these two contrasting environments and throughout the island. Phylogenetic and population genomic analyses consistently identify seven diferent clades of massive Porites, with the two largest clades predominantly inhabiting either river deltas or fore reefs, respectively. No population structure was detected in the two largest clades, and Cladocopium was the dominant symbiont genus in all clades and environments. The perceived bleaching resilience of corals in marginal reefs may therefore be attributed to interspecifc diferences between morphologically similar species, in addition to potentially mediating environmental diferences. Marginal reef environments may therefore not provide a suitable refuge for many reef corals in a heating world, but instead host additional cryptic coral diversity.

Bibliographic citation

Primov, K.D.; Burdick, D.R.; Lemer, S.; Forsman, Z.H.; Combosch, D.J. (2024). Genomic data reveals habitat partitioning in massive Porites on Guam, Micronesia. NPG Scientific Reports 14(1). https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-67992-w

Topic

Marine

Is peer reviewed

true

Access rights

open access

Is accessible for free

true