ArticleScience advances2021
Enhancing the heat tolerance of reef-building corals to future warming.
Article in Science advances, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Meta-analysis reveals less sensitivity of non-native animals than natives to extreme weather worldwide.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Pooled it
- Assisted Gene Flow Yields Physiologically RobustEvolutionary applications · 2026Article
- Coral Genetic Structure in the Western Indian Ocean Mirrors Ocean Circulation and Thermal Stress History.Evolutionary applications · 2026Article
- The genome of the reef-building coralGigaByte (Hong Kong, China) · 2026Article
- Selective breeding enhances coral heat tolerance even over small spatial scales.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Complex and lasting impacts of heatwaves on life-history traits and fitness in Daphnia magna.The Journal of experimental biology · 2025Article
- Coral thermotolerance retained following year-long exposure to a novel environment.Science advances · 2025Article
- Slight thermal stress exerts genetic diversity selection at coral (Acropora digitifera) larval stages.BMC genomics · 2025Article
- Selective breeding enhances coral heat tolerance to marine heatwaves.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Climate adaptive loci revealed by seascape genomics correlate with phenotypic variation in heat tolerance of the coral Acropora millepora.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- An epigenetic toolbox for conservation biologists.Evolutionary applications · 2024Article
- Complex parental effects impact variation in larval thermal tolerance in a vertically transmitting coral.Heredity · 2024Article
- Thermal tolerance traits of individual corals are widely distributed across the Great Barrier Reef.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- To live or let die? Epigenetic adaptations to climate change-a review.Environmental epigenetics · 2024Review
- Reef visitors' observation of assisted coral recovery devices in situ reduces concern about their use.PloS one · 2024Article
- Article
- Advancing the protection of marine life through genomics.PLoS biology · 2022Article
- Within-population variability in coral heat tolerance indicates climate adaptation potential.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Intrapopulation adaptive variance supports thermal tolerance in a reef-building coral.Communications biology · 2022Article
- Horizon scan of rapidly advancing coral restoration approaches for 21st century reef management.Emerging topics in life sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Reef-building corals thriving in extreme thermal environments may provide genetic variation that can assist the evolution of populations to rapid climate warming. However, the feasibility and scale of genetic improvements remain untested despite ongoing population declines from recurrent thermal stress events. Here, we show that corals from the hottest reefs in the world transfer sufficient heat tolerance to a naïve population sufficient to withstand end-of-century warming projections. Heat survival increased up to 84% when naïve mothers were selectively bred with fathers from the hottest reefs because of strong heritable genetic effects. We identified genomic loci associated with tolerance variation that were enriched for heat shock proteins, oxidative stress, and immune functions. Unexpectedly, several coral families exhibited survival rates and genomic associations deviating from origin predictions, including a few naïve purebreds with exceptionally high heat tolerance. Our findings highlight previously uncharacterized enhanced and intrinsic potential of coral populations to adapt to climate warming.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.