Nutrient starvation impairs the trophic plasticity of reef-building corals under ocean warming

1) Global warming of the world’s oceans is driving reef-building corals towards their upper thermal limit, inducing bleaching, nutrient starvation and mortality. In addition, corals are predicted to experience large fluctuations in seawater nutrient concentrations, following water column stratification or eutrophication problems, which can further alter their nutritional capacities and ultimately their resilience to global change. 2) We investigated the effect of thermal stress and dissolved inorganic nutrient (DINUT) availability on the auto- and heterotrophic nutritional capacities of corals. In particular, we assessed the effect of nitrogen enrichment or DINUT depletion (both in nitrogen and phosphorus) on the assimilation of heterotrophic nutrients as well as on the heat-stress tolerance of the reef-building coral Stylophora pistillata. 3) Here, we show that DINUT depletion enhanced coral bleaching under thermal stress and more importantly, significantly impaired rates of heterotrop...