Metabolomics data for study entitled 'Species-specific variation in the metabolomic profiles of Acropora hyachintus and Acropora millepora mask acute temperature stress effects in adult coral colonies'.

Coral reefs are suffering unprecedented declines in health state on a global scale. Some researchers have suggested that human assisted evolution (HAE) or assisted gene flow (AGF) may be necessary in order to effectively restore reefs and pre-condition them for future climate change. An understanding of the key metabolic processes in corals under stress at the omic-scale would greatly facilitate the effective application of these methods. To date, however, there has been little research on corals at this scale, particularly with regard to basic metabolomics within Scleractinian corals. Here, the metabolomic profiles (measured using 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H NMR) and ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)), of two dominant reef building corals, Acropora hyacinthus and A. millepora, from two distinct geographical locations (Australia, Great Barrier Reef and Singapore), were characterised. We assessed how an acute temperature stress (an increase of 3.25◦C ± 0.28 from ambient, control levels over 8 days) shifted the corals’ baseline metabolomic profiles. Regardless of the profiling method utilised, metabolomic signatures of coral colonies were significantly distinct between coral species, a result supporting previous work. This strong species-specific metabolomic signature appeared to mask any changes resulting from the heat stress. This indicates that currently metabolomics may not be the most sensitive tool for use in studies assessing the effects of heat stress in adult colonies which are not plastic in their metabolomic response to the stress events. Further research is urgently needed in order to decouple individual and species-level metabolomic responses in corals to climate change.