OSU research examines factors in climate change resiliency for certain coral species - KEZI TV

OSU research examines factors in climate change resiliency for certain coral species | Local | kezi.com

CORVALLIS, Ore. – An Oregon State University study suggests that some coral species may be resilient to marine heat waves through ecological memory response, the college said.

OSU researchers said they found that some coral species may be more resilient to climate change than previously thought by “remembering” how they lived through previous marine heat waves and is likely linked to microbial communities found among the corals. Coral reefs are in decline from a variety of human-related factors that include climate change and so the findings, published on December 19 in the Global Change Biology journal, represent a significant development, OSU scientists said.

OSU researchers said that while coral reefs are only found in less than one percent of the ocean, they are home to nearly 25% of all known marine species. Understanding how microbes aid in coral’s adaptation to warming temperatures can help scientists better manage coral gardening and planting efforts, researchers said. The scientists said that microbial elements that include varied bacteria, viruses, and more provide numerous benefits to the coral ecosystem, such as protection against pathogens, vitamin supplementation, and cycling of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur.

Climate change’s threat to coral reefs is in stressors introduced to coral and their microbes by warming ocean temperatures, OSU scientists said. The researchers said that they studied 200 coral colonies over a five-year period at a reef on north shore of Mo’orea, French Polynesia which suffered its second-most severe heat wave between February and July 2020.

“We observed that some species of coral seem to remember exposure to past marine heat waves and maintain a higher level of health in subsequent heat waves,” said Rebecca Vega Thurber, a microbiology professor at OSU. “And Acropora retusa’s memory response was strongly linked to changes in its microbiome, supporting the idea that the microbial community has a part in this process.”

OSU scientists said that heat waves are likely to increase in frequency and severity due to climate change and understanding microbial adaptative response can help in the development of probiotics and in the development of protocols in acting on individual coral colonies’ ecological memory.