Heritable differences in fitness-related traits among populations of the mustard hill coral, Porites astreoides

A population’s potential for rapid evolutionary adaptation can be estimated from the amount of genetic variation in fitness-related traits. Inshore populations of the mustard hill coral (Porites astreoides) have been shown to be more tolerant to thermal stress than offshore populations, but it is unclear whether this difference is due to long-term physiological acclimatization or genetic adaptation. Here, we evaluated variation in growth rate and survival among 38 families of juvenile recruits of P. astreoides spawned by colonies originating from inshore and offshore locations. Recruits were reared in a common garden for 5 weeks and then subjected to two thermal treatments (28  and 31 °C) for 2.5 weeks. The most significant effects were detected during the first 5 weeks, before thermal stress was applied: 27–30% of variance in growth and 94% of variance in recruit survival was attributable to parental effects. Genotyping of eight microsatellite loci indicated that the high early mortali...

种群快速进化适应的潜力可通过与适合度相关性状的遗传变异量来估算。芥末山珊瑚（Porites astreoides）的近岸种群已被证实比离岸种群对热应激具有更高耐受性，但目前尚不清楚这种差异是源于长期生理驯化还是遗传适应。本研究评估了来自近岸和离岸区域群体产卵的38个芥末山珊瑚幼体补充个体（recruits）家系的生长速率和存活率变异。这些幼体补充个体在公共栽培环境（common garden）中饲养5周，随后接受两种热处理（28℃和31℃），持续2.5周。最显著的效应出现在施加热应激前的5周内：生长变异的27–30%和幼体补充个体存活率变异的94%可归因于亲本效应。对8个微卫星位点的基因分型表明，早期高死亡率...