Data from: Maternal effects and Symbiodinium community composition drive differential patterns in juvenile survival in the coral Acropora tenuis

Raw data and statistical analysis to evaluate parental effects on larval survivorship, larval weight, settlement success and juvenile survivorship.Abstract [Related Publication]: Coral endosymbionts in the dinoflagellate genus Symbiodinium are known to impact host physiology and have led to the evolution of reef-building, but less is known about how symbiotic communities in early life-history stages and their interactions with host parental identity shape the structure of coral communities on reefs. Differentiating the roles of environmental and biological factors driving variation in population demographic processes, particularly larval settlement, early juvenile survival and the onset of symbiosis is key to understanding how coral communities are structured and to predicting how they are likely to respond to climate change. We show that maternal effects (that here include genetic and/or effects related to the maternal environment) can explain nearly 24% of variation in larval settlement success and 5–17% of variation in juvenile survival in an experimental study of the reef-building scleractinian coral, Acropora tenuis. After 25 days on the reef, Symbiodinium communities associated with juvenile corals differed significantly between high mortality and low mortality families based on estimates of taxonomic richness, composition and relative abundance of taxa. Our results highlight that maternal and familial effects significantly explain variation in juvenile survival and symbiont communities in a broadcast-spawning coral, with Symbiodinium type A3 possibly a critical symbiotic partner during this early life stage.The full methodology is available in the Open Access publication from the Related Publications link below.

用于评估亲本效应对幼虫存活率、幼虫体重、附着成功率与幼体存活率的原始数据及统计分析。摘要【相关文献】：已知虫黄藻属（Symbiodinium）内的珊瑚共生菌可影响宿主生理，并推动造礁珊瑚的演化，但学界对早期生活史阶段的共生群落，及其与宿主亲本身份的互作如何塑造珊瑚礁群落结构的认知仍较为有限。厘清驱动种群人口统计过程变异的环境与生物因子的作用——尤其是幼虫附着、早期幼体存活以及共生关系建立的过程——是理解珊瑚群落结构、并预测其对气候变化响应的关键所在。本研究针对造礁石珊瑚细枝鹿角珊瑚（Acropora tenuis）开展实验，结果显示，本研究中的母本效应（涵盖遗传因子及/或与母本环境相关的效应）可解释近24%的幼虫附着成功率变异，以及5%至17%的幼体存活率变异。在礁体上培育25天后，基于分类群丰富度、群落组成及类群相对丰度的评估结果，高死亡率家系与低死亡率家系的幼体珊瑚所关联的虫黄藻群落存在显著差异。本研究结果表明，在广播式产卵珊瑚中，母本与家系效应可显著解释幼体存活率与共生菌群落的变异，且虫黄藻A3型（Symbiodinium type A3）可能是该早期生活史阶段的关键共生伙伴。完整的实验方法可通过下文相关出版物链接中的开放获取文献获取。