RAPID: Leveraging a Natural Bleaching Event to Assess Links between Bleaching and Disease

RAPID：利用自然漂白事件评估漂白与疾病之间的联系

• 批准号: 2347450
• 负责人: Lauren Fuess
• 金额: $ 19.91万
• 依托单位: Texas State University - San Marcos
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-11-01 至 2024-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2347450&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Leveraging; Natural; Bleaching; Event

Stony corals, the foundation of coral reef ecosystems, are facing significant population declines due to a range of environmental conditions, including increasing sea surface temperatures. These warmer waters are leading to a rise in the occurrence of infectious disease outbreaks and increased periods of intense high temperatures that result in coral bleaching. The ongoing devastating disease outbreak in the Caribbean coupled with the high temperatures of summer 2023 have exposed Caribbean corals to a unique combination of deadly stressors. The research team is leveraging these environmental conditions, along with robust historical data, to investigate the mechanisms which link coral bleaching to disease susceptibility. These data provide novel insight regarding coral resilience to improve management and conservation of these important ecosystems and the team is working directly with practitioners to disseminate project results. The project also provides research and educational opportunities for multiple undergraduate students at minority serving institutions. Scleractinian corals have faced significant mortality in recent decades due to a diversity of anthropogenic stressors, most prominently the interacting stressors of rising sea surface temperatures and epizootic outbreaks. Notably, thermal anomalies resulting in coral bleaching and coral disease outbreaks are often linked, sometimes in asynchronous patterns. Corals in the Caribbean have been experiencing a significant mortality from a novel disease (Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, SCTLD). Additionally, record high temperatures in summer 2023 have triggered a massive region-wide bleaching event. This project leverages these unique ongoing environmental conditions, combined with a robust historical physiological data set, to investigate the mechanisms linking thermal stress response to disease susceptibility in corals. The team is monitoring and sampling corals known to be SCTLD-resistant for one year from the peak of bleaching through recovery, tracking bleaching & disease outcomes, host immunity/physiology, and symbiont communities (microbiome and photosymbiont). These data are being compared to historical physiological data collected before and during the initial SCTLD outbreak to characterize the mechanisms linking bleaching recovery to disease susceptibility. The results of this study provide unprecedented new insights regarding the cellular mechanisms linking bleaching and disease susceptibility in corals, improving general understanding of multi-stressor response in marine organisms.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

珊瑚礁生态系统的基础石质珊瑚由于一系列环境条件，包括海面温度的升高，正面临着大量人口的大幅下降。这些温暖的水域导致传染病暴发的发生和增加的高温时期增加，导致珊瑚漂白。加勒比海中持续的毁灭性疾病爆发以及2023年夏季的高温使加勒比海珊瑚暴露于多种致命的压力源中。研究小组正在利用这些环境条件以及强大的历史数据来研究将珊瑚漂白与疾病敏感性联系起来的机制。这些数据提供了有关珊瑚弹性的新见解，以改善对这些重要生态系统的管理和保护，团队正与从业人员直接合作以传播项目结果。该项目还为少数派服务机构的多个本科生提供了研究和教育机会。由于人为应激源的多样性，最近几十年来，巩膜珊瑚在近几十年内已面临着显着的死亡，最突出的是海面温度上升和epizootic爆发的相互作用压力源。值得注意的是，导致珊瑚漂白和珊瑚疾病暴发的热异常通常是连接的，有时是异步的。加勒比海中的珊瑚一直从一种新型疾病（Stony珊瑚组织损失疾病，SCTLD）中出现显着死亡。此外，2023年夏季创纪录的高温引发了大规模范围内的漂白事件。该项目利用这些独特的正在进行的环境条件，再加上强大的历史生理数据集，以研究将热应力反应与珊瑚疾病敏感性联系起来的机制。该团队正在监测和采样珊瑚，已知可以通过恢复，追踪漂白和疾病结局，宿主免疫/生理学以及共生群落群落（微生物组和Photosymbiont）进行漂白，追踪和疾病的结果，宿主免疫/生理学，宿主免疫/生理学和疾病。将这些数据与最初的SCTLD爆发之前和期间收集的历史生理数据进行了比较，以表征将漂白恢复与疾病敏感性联系起来的机制。这项研究的结果提供了有关珊瑚中漂白和疾病易感性的细胞机制的前所未有的新见解，提高了对海洋生物体中多应力反应的一般理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并认为使用该基金会的知识分子功能和广泛的影响来评估CRETERIA，并被认为是值得通过评估的支持。