Host pigments of hermatypic corals as indicators of environmental stress in reef communities

造礁珊瑚的寄主色素作为珊瑚礁群落环境压力的指标

• 批准号: NE/H012303/1
• 负责人: Joerg Wiedenmann
• 金额: $ 2.81万
• 依托单位: University of Southampton
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2010 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FH012303%2F1
• 关键词: Host; pigments; hermatypic; corals; indicators

Shallow water coral reefs are among the most important centres of marine biodiversity providing invaluable ecosystem services as millions of people are economically dependent on the reef and its creatures. A multiplicity of natural and anthropogenic stressors such as global warming, ocean acidification, rising pollution, overfishing, attacks by predators or pathogens, salinity variations and increased sedimentation might result in a dramatic loss of coral reefs within this century. The future of coral reefs is strongly dependent on strategies that enable identification of reef regions affected by high levels of stress and to forecast bleaching events in order to enhance management efforts on particularly vulnerable areas. However, the predictive capacity of currently available remote sensing techniques is limited by the fact that prediction is mainly based on temperature anomalies and does not consider the above mentioned multitude of stress factors that act together to increase susceptibility to bleaching. Consequently, approaches are required that analyse the cumulative response of corals themselves rather than single environmental parameters. Most recently, we showed that genes encoding representatives of the family of GFP (green fluorescent protein)-like proteins were differentially regulated in response to stress. These pigments are responsible for most of the intense purple-blue, green, or reddish hues of reef-building corals. Fluorescent representatives of this protein family emit photons in the spectral range from cyan to red upon stimulation with light of suitable wavelengths. We could show that FP transcript levels were strongly reduced due to heat stress, but increased under cold and oxidative stress. The strong response of FP genes in corals to various changes of the environmental conditions suggests that these pigments might serve as the urgently needed intrinsic markers of coral health. The spectral analysis of fluorescence signatures of indicator specimens could allow a non-invasive, fast and low cost method to assess stress levels in coral reef communities. Indeed, laser fluorescence imaging as potential tool to access the information provided by coral fluorescence in large spatial areas of coral reefs was shown to be technically feasible. However, detailed knowledge about the specificity and significance of the response of coral pigments to environmental changes is required to establish coral colour as a cumulative indicator of coral health. At present, it is not clear if the downregulation of FP transcripts reported from short term (hours) experiments results also in a measurable reduction of protein levels. This is not a self-evident consequence, as we found previously that the proteins pigments in coral tissue have a slow turnover (half-life ~3 weeks) that might mask short-term alterations at the transcript level. The proposed study will focus on temperature stress as an eminent threat for coral reefs. Moreover, examination of the effect of this stress factor on the tissue content of host pigments is most promising to demonstrate the proof of principle of the new monitoring concept as a downregulation of transcripts encoding GFP-like proteins was already observed in short term experiments. Our results will greatly facilitate future experiments that will test the reponse of corals to combinations of different forms of stress and refine the fluorescent protein-based bioindicator system to allow for the discrimination among different physiological responses.

浅水珊瑚礁是海洋生物多样性最重要的中心之一，提供宝贵的生态系统服务，因为数百万人在经济上依赖珊瑚礁及其生物。全球变暖、海洋酸化、污染加剧、过度捕捞、捕食者或病原体的攻击、盐度变化和沉积物增加等多种自然和人为压力因素可能会导致本世纪内珊瑚礁的急剧丧失。珊瑚礁的未来在很大程度上取决于能够识别受高压力影响的珊瑚礁区域并预测白化事件的战略，以加强对特别脆弱地区的管理工作。然而，目前可用的遥感技术的预测能力受到以下事实的限制：预测主要基于温度异常，并且没有考虑上述多种共同作用增加白化敏感性的胁迫因素。因此，需要采取分析珊瑚本身累积反应而不是单一环境参数的方法。最近，我们发现编码 GFP（绿色荧光蛋白）类蛋白家族代表的基因在应激反应中受到差异性调节。这些色素造成了造礁珊瑚的大部分强烈的紫蓝色、绿色或红色色调。该蛋白质家族的荧光代表在受到合适波长的光刺激后会发射从青色到红色光谱范围内的光子。我们可以证明 FP 转录水平因热应激而大幅降低，但在冷应激和氧化应激下升高。珊瑚中 FP 基因对环境条件的各种变化的强烈反应表明这些色素可能作为珊瑚健康急需的内在标记。对指示样本荧光特征的光谱分析可以提供一种非侵入性、快速且低成本的方法来评估珊瑚礁群落的压力水平。事实上，激光荧光成像作为获取珊瑚礁大空间区域中珊瑚荧光提供的信息的潜在工具在技术上是可行的。然而，需要详细了解珊瑚色素对环境变化反应的特异性和重要性，才能将珊瑚颜色确立为珊瑚健康的累积指标。目前，尚不清楚短期（数小时）实验报告的 FP 转录本下调是否也会导致蛋白质水平可测量的降低。这并不是一个不言而喻的结果，因为我们之前发现珊瑚组织中的蛋白质色素周转缓慢（半衰期约为 3 周），可能掩盖转录水平的短期变化。拟议的研究将重点关注对珊瑚礁构成重大威胁的温度压力。此外，检查这种应激因素对宿主色素组织含量的影响最有希望证明新监测概念的原理证明，因为在短期实验中已经观察到编码 GFP 样蛋白的转录本下调。我们的结果将极大地促进未来的实验，这些实验将测试珊瑚对不同形式的压力组合的反应，并完善基于荧光蛋白的生物指示剂系统，以区分不同的生理反应。

项目成果

Corals from the Persian/Arabian Gulf as models for thermotolerant reef-builders: prevalence of clade C3 Symbiodinium, host fluorescence and ex situ temperature tolerance.

来自波斯/阿拉伯湾的珊瑚作为耐热珊瑚礁建造者的模型：C3 Symbiodinium 分支的流行、宿主荧光和异位温度耐受性。

• DOI: http://dx.10.1016/j.marpolbul.2012.11.032
• 发表时间: 2013
• 期刊: Marine pollution bulletin
• 影响因子: 5.8
• 作者: Hume B

FRET-Mediated Long-Range Wavelength Transformation by Photoconvertible Fluorescent Proteins as an Efficient Mechanism to Generate Orange-Red Light in Symbiotic Deep Water Corals.

FRET 介导的光转换荧光蛋白长范围波长转换是在共生深水珊瑚中产生橙红光的有效机制。

• DOI: http://dx.10.3390/ijms18071174
• 发表时间: 2017
• 期刊: International journal of molecular sciences
• 影响因子: 5.6
• 作者: Bollati E

Locally accelerated growth is part of the innate immune response and repair mechanisms in reef-building corals as detected by green fluorescent protein (GFP)-like pigments

局部加速生长是造礁珊瑚先天免疫反应和修复机制的一部分，可通过绿色荧光蛋白 (GFP) 类色素检测到

• DOI: 10.1007/s00338-012-0926-8
• 发表时间: 2012-06-26
• 期刊: Coral Reefs
• 影响因子: 3.5
• 作者: C. D’Angelo;Edward G. Smith;F. Oswald;J. Burt;D. Tchernov;J. Wiedenmann
• 通讯作者: J. Wiedenmann

Diversity of zooxanthellae from corals and sea anemones after long-term aquarium culture

长期水族箱培养后珊瑚和海葵中虫黄藻的多样性

• DOI: http://dx.10.1017/s0025315411001159
• 发表时间: 2011
• 期刊: Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom
• 影响因子: 1.2
• 作者: Hartle

An experimental mesocosm for long-term studies of reef corals

用于珊瑚礁长期研究的实验中生态系统

• DOI: http://dx.10.1017/s0025315411001883
• 发表时间: 2011
• 期刊: Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom
• 影响因子: 1.2
• 作者: D'angelo C