Micromorphological analyses of Pocillopora damicornis spine structures collected from reef of Heron Island, southern Great Barrier Reef from Jan 2021 to Feb 2021

Corals residing in habitats that experience frequent seawater pCO2 variability may possess an enhanced capacity to cope with ocean acidification. Yet, we lack a clear understanding of the molecular toolkit enabling acclimatization to environmental extremes, and how life-long exposure to pCO2 variability influences biomineralization. We examined the gene expression responses and micro-skeletal characteristics of Pocillopora damicornis originating from the reef flat and reef slope of Heron Island, southern Great Barrier Reef. The reef flat (454 ± 3.0) and reef slope (418 ± 1.9) had similar mean seawater pCO2 (µatm; mean ± SE), but the reef flat experienced twice the mean daily pCO2 amplitude (range of 797v. 399 µatm day-1, respectively). A controlled mesocosm experiment was conducted over eight weeks, exposing P. damicornis from the reef slope and reef flat to stable (218±9) or variable (911±31) diel pCO2 fluctuations (µatm; mean ± SE).

This dataset includes the data and analyses for the spine structures micromorphological analyses of P. damicornis, including the origin reef environment, treatment, colony ID, feature of interest, image magnification, image name, observer, replicate, spine length, spine width, and number of spines.