Exposure to global change and microplastics elicits an immune response in an endangered coral

Global change is increasing seawater temperatures and decreasing oceanic pH, driving declines of coral reefs globally. Coral ecosystems are also impacted by local stressors, including microplastics, which are ubiquitous on reefs. While the independent effects of these global and local stressors are well-documented, their interactions remain less explored. Here, we examine the independent and combined effects of global change (ocean warming and acidification) and microplastics exposures on gene expression (GE) and microbial community composition in the endangered coral Acropora cervicornis. Nine genotypes were fragmented and maintained in one of four experimental treatments: 1) ambient conditions (ambient seawater, no microplastics AMB) 2) microplastics treatment (ambient seawater, microplastics MP) 3) global change conditions (warm and acidic conditions, no microplastics OAW) and 4) multistressor treatment (warm and acidic conditions with microplastics OAW+MP) for 21 days after which corals were sampled for genome-wide GE profiling and ITS and 16S metabarcoding. Overall A. cervicornis GE responses to all treatments were subtle however, corals in the multistressor treatment exhibited the strongest GE responses, and gene ontology enrichment analyses showcased that genes associated with innate immunity were overrepresented in this treatment. 16S analyses showcased that microbiomes were dominated by the bacterial symbiont Aquarickettsia and were stable, suggesting that A. cervicornis exhibited remarkably low variability in community composition, and future work should focus on functional differences across these bacterial communities as well as the influence of viruses in these responses. Overall, results suggest that local stressors present a unique challenge to endangered coral species under global change.

Identifier
Source https://data.blue-cloud.org/search-details?step=~012009FBCB0FB7FE0AE7B1F93D63B9D4BFF6507420F
Metadata Access https://data.blue-cloud.org/api/collections/009FBCB0FB7FE0AE7B1F93D63B9D4BFF6507420F
Provenance
Instrument Illumina MiSeq; Illumina NovaSeq 6000; ILLUMINA
Publisher Blue-Cloud Data Discovery & Access service; ELIXIR-ENA
Publication Year 2024
OpenAccess true
Contact blue-cloud-support(at)maris.nl
Representation
Discipline Marine Science
Temporal Point 2020-11-02T00:00:00Z