{"title":"A physiological crisis drives the coral recruitment bottleneck.","authors":"Peter Edmunds, Adrian Cheh, Scott Burgess","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0103","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Recruitment failure is an important factor contributing to population declines of tropical corals. Because the causes of death for juvenile corals are unclear, it is challenging to predict how recruitment bottlenecks will change in the future. We tested the hypothesis that depletion of metabolic reserves increases mortality of juvenile corals under thermal stress. Metabolic reserves of juvenile colonies (<30 mm diameter) of broadcast spawning <i>Pocillopora</i> from Moorea, French Polynesia, were manipulated using elevated temperature to increase respiration, and reduced day length to decrease photosynthesis, and estimated as biomass. Corals with high or low biomass were incubated at 28°C and 31°C for 15 days. Juvenile <i>P. meandrina</i> with high biomass were six times more likely to die at 31°C versus 28°C, but corals with low biomass were 48 times more likely to die at 31°C versus 28°C. When juvenile <i>Pocillopora</i> were grown in seawater augmented with bicarbonate to reduce the cost of skeletogenesis in support of growth, growth was not affected, but energy expenditure was reduced by 20% to reduce reliance on metabolic reserves. Resource limitation of juvenile corals can affect their response to elevated temperatures, supporting the hypothesis that a physiological crisis initiated by resource limitation mediates the stringency of recruitment bottlenecks.</p>","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 6","pages":"20250103"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12173483/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Biology Letters","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0103","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/6/18 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Recruitment failure is an important factor contributing to population declines of tropical corals. Because the causes of death for juvenile corals are unclear, it is challenging to predict how recruitment bottlenecks will change in the future. We tested the hypothesis that depletion of metabolic reserves increases mortality of juvenile corals under thermal stress. Metabolic reserves of juvenile colonies (<30 mm diameter) of broadcast spawning Pocillopora from Moorea, French Polynesia, were manipulated using elevated temperature to increase respiration, and reduced day length to decrease photosynthesis, and estimated as biomass. Corals with high or low biomass were incubated at 28°C and 31°C for 15 days. Juvenile P. meandrina with high biomass were six times more likely to die at 31°C versus 28°C, but corals with low biomass were 48 times more likely to die at 31°C versus 28°C. When juvenile Pocillopora were grown in seawater augmented with bicarbonate to reduce the cost of skeletogenesis in support of growth, growth was not affected, but energy expenditure was reduced by 20% to reduce reliance on metabolic reserves. Resource limitation of juvenile corals can affect their response to elevated temperatures, supporting the hypothesis that a physiological crisis initiated by resource limitation mediates the stringency of recruitment bottlenecks.
期刊介绍:
Previously a supplement to Proceedings B, and launched as an independent journal in 2005, Biology Letters is a primarily online, peer-reviewed journal that publishes short, high-quality articles, reviews and opinion pieces from across the biological sciences. The scope of Biology Letters is vast - publishing high-quality research in any area of the biological sciences. However, we have particular strengths in the biology, evolution and ecology of whole organisms. We also publish in other areas of biology, such as molecular ecology and evolution, environmental science, and phylogenetics.