Montipora capitata bleached/nonbleached pair sequencing

Sequence data pertaining to Multi-locus selection under thermal stress increases population-wide larval and juvenile heat tolerance in a reef-building coral.Declining coral reefs face a future that includes more frequent and severe mass bleaching events, threatening the long-term persistence of these ecosystems and the services they provide. The coral response to thermal stress is a complex trait mediated by fixed differences and plasticity throughout the holobiont, but adaptive recombination in the host through sexual reproduction is critical to sustain populations that will continue to experience increasing temperatures. We take advantage of intra-population variation in bleaching susceptibility in the reef-building coral Montipora capitata in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii to examine heritability, selection pressure and ecological outcomes of sexual reproduction in warming oceans.