Global Search for Genetic Regulators of Coral Resilience to Thermal Stress. scleractinia

A major impediment to our ability to conserve and protect corals from bleaching is our current lack of understanding of the molecular genetic factors and mechanisms that underpin thermal adaptation, including thermal tolerance, the ability of the coral holobiont to withstand short-term temperature increases, and thermal resilience, the ability to recover from prolonged thermal stress. A unified strategy to generate a deeper understanding of the individual genes, gene products, and molecular mechanisms that determine thermal tolerance and resilience will directly enable more rapid and efficient coral conservation and restoration. This project aims to (1) to globally identify coral populations that are most thermally tolerant and (2) investigate their genomic makeup to elucidate conserved signatures of heat tolerance across all major holobiont compartments. To achieve this, we employ our developed standardized, portable experimental system termed CBASS (the Coral Bleaching Automated Stress System) and subsequently interrogate assayed specimens using a systems biology approach.