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.