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Marine Heatwave Caused Differentiated Dysbiosis in Photosymbiont Assemblages of Corals and Hydrocorals During El Niño 2015/2016

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Abstract

Reef corals have been threatened by climate change, with more frequent and intense bleaching events leading to extensive coral mortality and loss of coral cover worldwide. In the face of this, the corals’ photosymbiont assemblages have received special attention as a key to better understand the bleaching process and its recovery. To assess the effects of thermal anomalies, the coral Mussismilia harttii and the hydrocoral Millepora alcicornis were monitored through the El Niño 2015/2016 at a Southwestern Atlantic (SWA) coral reef. A severe bleaching event (57% of colonies bleached) was documented, triggered by a < 3 °C-week heatwave, but no mortality was detected. The hydrocoral was more susceptible than the scleractinian, displaying bleaching symptoms earlier and experiencing a longer and more intense bleaching event. The composition of photosymbionts in the M. alcicornis population was affected only at the rare biosphere level (< 5% relative abundance), with the emergence of new symbionts after bleaching. Conversely, a temporary dysbiosis was observed in the M. harttii population, with one of the dominant symbiodiniaceans decreasing in relative abundance at the peak of the bleaching, which negatively affected the total β-diversity. After colonies’ complete recovery, symbiodiniaceans’ dominances returned to normal levels in both hosts. These results highlight critical differences in how the two coral species cope with bleaching and contribute to the understanding of the role of photosymbionts throughout the bleaching-recovery process.

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Data Availability

The molecular data generated and analyzed during the current study are available in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive database under the BioProject ID PRJNA943220.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Rodrigo Nunes and MSc. Bruno Rodrigues for providing the technical support for sequencing and the infrastructure of the Integrated Functional Genomics Unit, and Dr. Raquel Peixoto for providing the storage of refrigerated samples. The Coral Vivo Project and its sponsors Petrobras, through the Petrobras Environmental Program, and Arraial d’Ajuda Eco Parque are acknowledged for supporting field research and logistics.

Funding

This work was supported by the Coral Vivo Project and its sponsors Petrobras through the Petrobras Environmental Program and Arraial d’Ajuda Eco Parque. A G Garrido was a Ph.D. fellow from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) and the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ - Programa Bolsa Nota 10 # 2/2021).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biodiversidade e Biologia Evolutiva, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Amana Guedes Garrido

  2. Centro de Biologia Marinha, Universidade de São Paulo, São Sebastião, SP, Brazil

    Amana Guedes Garrido

  3. Instituto Coral Vivo, Santa Cruz Cabrália, BA, Brazil

    Amana Guedes Garrido, Cristiano Macedo Pereira, Emiliano Nicolas Calderon & Carla Zilberberg

  4. Universidade Federal do Vale do São Francisco (UNIVASF), Senhor do Bonfim, BA, Brazil

    Laís Feitosa Machado

  5. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Zoologia, Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Cristiano Macedo Pereira & Douglas Pinto Abrantes

  6. Instituto de Biodiversidade e Sustentabilidade – NUPEM, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Macaé, RJ, Brazil

    Emiliano Nicolas Calderon & Carla Zilberberg

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  1. Amana Guedes Garrido
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  2. Laís Feitosa Machado
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  3. Cristiano Macedo Pereira
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  4. Douglas Pinto Abrantes
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  5. Emiliano Nicolas Calderon
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. Amana G. Garrido, Laís F. Machado, Cristiano M. Pereira, and Douglas P. Abrantes performed material preparation, data collection, and analysis. Carla Zilberberg and Emiliano N. Calderon led the funding acquisition. Amana G Garrido wrote the manuscript’s first draft, and all authors commented on previous versions. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Amana Guedes Garrido.

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This study was performed under the sampling permission (# 47714-1) of the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) / Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio), under the Instruction Normative n° 03/2014 of System Authorization and Information on Biodiversity (SISBIO).

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Garrido, A.G., Machado, L.F., Pereira, C.M. et al. Marine Heatwave Caused Differentiated Dysbiosis in Photosymbiont Assemblages of Corals and Hydrocorals During El Niño 2015/2016. Microb Ecol 86, 2959–2969 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-023-02299-3

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