Project description:Coral bleaching in response to stress deprives coral colonies of energy-providing algal symbionts, potentially disrupting colony energy balance. In M. capitata, thermal bleaching typically occurs at the beginning of a new gametogenic cycle, depriving parent colonies of symbionts just as oocyte formation begins. However, this species is able to recover from bleachin through a variety of plastic responses and produce viable gametes on schedule, even though oocytes from bleached colonies are significantly smaller than from non-bleached. We performed mass spectrometry proteomics on the gamete bundles (eggs and sperm) produced from bleached and non-bleached colonies. The data here were collected with data dependent acquisition; an additional data independent acquisition dataset has been uploaded to Panorama Web.
Project description:Thermal history plays a role in the response of corals to subsequent heat stress. Prior heat stress can have a profound impact on later thermal tolerance, but the mechanism for this plasticity is not clear. The understanding of gene expression changes behind physiological acclimatization is critical in forecasts of coral health in impending climate change scenarios. Acropora millepora fragments were preconditioned to sublethal bleaching threshold stress for a period of 10 days; this prestress conferred bleaching resistance in subsequent thermal challenge, in which non-preconditioned coral bleached. Using microarrays, we analyze the transcriptomes of the coral host, comparing the bleaching-resistant preconditioned treatment to non-preconditioned and control treatments.