ArticleCommunications biology2023
No apparent trade-offs associated with heat tolerance in a reef-building coral.
Article in Communications biology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Algal Symbionts Indicate Heatwave Vulnerability in Corals From Hotspots but Not From Thermal Refugia.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Enhancing kelp productivity in restoration and assisted adaptation interventions under ocean warming.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Species-specific retention vs. recovery of coral thermal tolerance following nursery propagation.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Fate-tracking early coral recruits following bleaching in a remote reef ecosystem.Coral reefs (Online) · 2025Article
- Selective breeding enhances coral heat tolerance to marine heatwaves.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Integrating cryptic diversity into coral evolution, symbiosis and conservation.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Review
- Corals that survive repeated thermal stress show signs of selection and acclimatization.PloS one · 2024Article
- Thermal tolerance traits of individual corals are widely distributed across the Great Barrier Reef.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Divergent bleaching and recovery trajectories in reef-building corals following a decade of successive marine heatwaves.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Emergent increase in coral thermal tolerance reduces mass bleaching under climate change.Nature communications · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
15 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
As marine species adapt to climate change, their heat tolerance will likely be under strong selection. Yet trade-offs between heat tolerance and other life history traits could compromise natural adaptation or assisted evolution. This is particularly important for ecosystem engineers, such as reef-building corals, which support biodiversity yet are vulnerable to heatwave-induced mass bleaching and mortality. Here, we exposed 70 colonies of the reef-building coral Acropora digitifera to a long-term marine heatwave emulation experiment. We tested for trade-offs between heat tolerance and three traits measured from the colonies in situ - colony growth, fecundity, and symbiont community composition. Despite observing remarkable within-population variability in heat tolerance, all colonies were dominated by Cladocopium C40 symbionts. We found no evidence for trade-offs between heat tolerance and fecundity or growth. Contrary to expectations, positive associations emerged with growth, such that faster-growing colonies tended to bleach and die at higher levels of heat stress. Collectively, our results suggest that these corals exist on an energetic continuum where some high-performing individuals excel across multiple traits. Within populations, trade-offs between heat tolerance and growth or fecundity may not be major barriers to natural adaptation or the success of assisted evolution interventions.
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