scholarly journals Light induced intraspecific variability in response to thermal stress in the hard coral Stylophora pistillata

PeerJ ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. e3802
Author(s):  
Arjen Tilstra ◽  
Tim Wijgerde ◽  
Francisco Dini-Andreote ◽  
Britas Klemens Eriksson ◽  
Joana Falcão Salles ◽  
...  

Recent research suggests that prior exposure of several months to elevated irradiance induces enhanced thermal tolerance in scleractinian corals. While this tolerance has been reported at the species level, individual coral colonies may react differently due to individual variability in thermal tolerance. As thermal anomalies are predicted to become common in the upcoming future, intraspecific variation may be key to the survival of coral populations. In order to study light-history based thermal stress responses on individual colonies, we developed a preliminary microcosm experiment where three randomly chosen, aquacultured colonies of the model coral Stylophora pistillata were exposed to two irradiance treatments (200 and 400 μmol photons m−2 s−1) for 31 days, followed by artificially induced heat stress (∼33.4 °C). We found different responses to occur at both the intraspecific and the intracolonial levels, as indicated by either equal, less severe, delayed, and/or even non-necrotic responses of corals previously exposed to the irradiance of 400 compared to 200 μmol photons m−2 s−1. In addition, all individual colonies revealed light-enhanced calcification. Finally, elevated irradiance resulted in a lower chlorophyll a concentration in one colony compared to the control treatment, and the same colony displayed more rapid bleaching compared to the other ones. Taken together, this study highlights the potential importance of intra-individual variability in physiological responses of scleractinian corals and provides recommendations for improving methodological designs for future studies.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Voolstra ◽  
Jacob Valenzuela ◽  
Serdar Turkarslan ◽  
Anny Cardenas ◽  
Benjamin Hume ◽  
...  

Abstract Corals from the northern Red Sea, in particular the Gulf of Aqaba (GoA), have exceptionally high bleaching thresholds approaching >5°C above their maximum monthly mean (MMM) temperatures. These elevated thresholds are thought to be due to historical selection, as corals passed through the warmer Southern Red Sea during re-colonization from the Arabian Sea. To test this hypothesis, we determined thermal tolerance thresholds of GoA versus Central Red Sea (CRS) Stylophora pistillata corals using the Coral Bleaching Automated Stress System (CBASS) to run a series of standardized acute thermal stress assays. Relative thermal thresholds of GoA and CRS corals were indeed similar and exceptionally high (~7°C above MMM). However, absolute thermal thresholds of CRS corals were on average 3°C above those of GoA corals. To explore the mechanistic underpinnings, we determined gene expression response and microbiome dynamics of coral holobiont compartments. Transcriptomic responses differed markedly, with a strong response to the thermal stress in GoA corals versus a remarkably muted response in corals from the CRS. This pattern was recapitulated in the algal symbionts that showed site-specific genetic differentiation. Concomitant to this, a subset of coral and algal genes showed temperature-induced expression in GoA corals, while exhibiting fixed high expression, i.e. front-loading, in CRS corals. Bacterial community composition of GoA corals changed dramatically under heat stress, whereas CRS corals displayed consistent assemblages, indicating distinct microbial response patterns. Our work demonstrates distinct patterns underlying thermal tolerance across spatial scales, even for the same species and ocean basin. We interpret the response of GoA corals as that of a resilient population approaching a tipping point in contrast to a pattern of consistently elevated thermal resistance in CRS corals that cannot further attune. Such response differences suggest distinct thermal tolerance mechanisms that affect the response of coral populations to ocean warming.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Santinni Roma ◽  
Shaina D’Souza ◽  
Patrick J. Somers ◽  
Leah F. Cabo ◽  
Ruhan Farsin ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTTsetse flies (Diptera: Glossinidae) house a taxonomically diverse microbiota that includes environmentally acquired bacteria, maternally transmitted symbiotic bacteria, and pathogenic African trypanosomes. Sodalis glossinidius, which is a facultative symbiont that resides intra and extracellularly within multiple tsetse tissues, has been implicated as a mediator of trypanosome infection establishment in the fly’s gut. Tsetse’s gut-associated population of Sodalis are subjected to marked temperature fluctuations each time their ectothermic fly host imbibes vertebrate blood. The molecular mechanisms that Sodalis employs to deal with this heat stress are unknown. In this study, we examined the thermal tolerance and heat shock response of Sodalis. When grown on BHI agar plates, the bacterium exhibited the most prolific growth at 25°C, and did not grow at temperatures above 30°C. Growth on BHI agar plates at 31°C was dependent on either the addition of blood to the agar or reduction in oxygen levels. Sodalis was viable in liquid cultures for 24 hours at 30°C, but began to die upon further exposure. The rate of death increased with increased temperature. Similarly, Sodalis was able to survive for 48 hours within tsetse flies housed at 30°C, while a higher temperature (37°C) was lethal. Sodalis’ genome contains homologues of the heat shock chaperone protein-encoding genes dnaK, dnaJ, and grpE, and their expression was up-regulated in thermally stressed Sodalis, both in vitro and in vivo within tsetse flies. Arrested growth of E. coli dnaK, dnaJ, or grpE mutants under thermal stress was reversed when the cells were transformed with a low copy plasmid that encoded the Sodalis homologues of these genes. The information contained in this study provides insight into how arthropod vector enteric commensals, many of which mediate their host’s ability to transmit pathogens, mitigate heat shock associated with the ingestion of a blood meal.AUTHOR SUMMARYMicroorganisms associated with insects must cope with fluctuating temperatures. Because symbiotic bacteria influence the biology of their host, how they respond to temperature changes will have an impact on the host and other microorganisms in the host. The tsetse fly and its symbionts represent an important model system for studying thermal tolerance because the fly feeds exclusively on vertebrate blood and is thus exposed to dramatic temperature shifts. Tsetse flies house a microbial community that can consist of symbiotic and environmentally acquired bacteria, viruses, and parasitic African trypanosomes. This work, which makes use of tsetse’s commensal symbiont, Sodalis glossinidius, is significance because it represents the only examination of thermal tolerance mechanisms in a bacterium that resides indigenously within an arthropod disease vector. A better understanding of the biology of thermal tolerance in Sodalis provides insight into thermal stress survival in other insect symbionts and may yield information to help control vector-borne disease.


2003 ◽  
Vol 86 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 139-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin J. Rowbury

Biological thermometers are cellular components or structures which sense increasing temperatures, interaction of the thermometer and the thermal stress bringing about the switching-on of inducible responses, with gradually enhanced levels of response induction following gradually increasing temperatures. In enterobacteria, for studies of such thermometers, generally induction of heat shock protein (HSP) synthesis has been examined, with experimental studies aiming to establish (often indirectly) how the temperature changes which initiate HSP synthesis are sensed; numerous other processes and responses show graded induction as temperature is increased, and how the temperature changes which induce these are sensed is also of interest. Several classes of intracellular component and structure have been proposed as enterobacterial thermometers, with the ribosome and the DnaK chaperone being the most favoured, although for many of the proposed intracellular thermometers, most of the evidence for their functioning in this way is indirect. In contrast to the above, the studies reviewed here firmly establish that for four distinct stress responses, which are switched-on gradually as temperature increases, temperature changes are sensed by extracellular components (extracellular sensing components, ESCs) i.e. there is firm and direct evidence for the occurrence of extracellular thermometers. All four thermometers described here are proteins, which appear to be distinct and different from each other, and on sensing thermal stress are activated by it to four distinct extracellular induction components (EICs), which interact with receptors on the surface of organisms to induce the appropriate responses. It is predicted that many other temperature-induced processes, including the synthesis of HSPs, will be switched-on following the activation of similar extracellular thermometers by thermal stimuli.


2020 ◽  
Vol 158 ◽  
pp. 111405
Author(s):  
Kanwara Sangmanee ◽  
Beatriz E. Casareto ◽  
The Duc Nguyen ◽  
Laddawan Sangsawang ◽  
Keita Toyoda ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. eaba9958
Author(s):  
Maxence Guillermic ◽  
Louise P. Cameron ◽  
Ilian De Corte ◽  
Sambuddha Misra ◽  
Jelle Bijma ◽  
...  

The combination of thermal stress and ocean acidification (OA) can more negatively affect coral calcification than an individual stressors, but the mechanism behind this interaction is unknown. We used two independent methods (microelectrode and boron geochemistry) to measure calcifying fluid pH (pHcf) and carbonate chemistry of the corals Pocillopora damicornis and Stylophora pistillata grown under various temperature and pCO2 conditions. Although these approaches demonstrate that they record pHcf over different time scales, they reveal that both species can cope with OA under optimal temperatures (28°C) by elevating pHcf and aragonite saturation state (Ωcf) in support of calcification. At 31°C, neither species elevated these parameters as they did at 28°C and, likewise, could not maintain substantially positive calcification rates under any pH treatment. These results reveal a previously uncharacterized influence of temperature on coral pHcf regulation—the apparent mechanism behind the negative interaction between thermal stress and OA on coral calcification.


2003 ◽  
Vol 66 (11) ◽  
pp. 2045-2050 ◽  
Author(s):  
YI ZHANG ◽  
MANSEL W. GRIFFITHS

Heat shock proteins play an important role in protecting bacterial cells against several stresses, including starvation. In this study, the promoters for two genes encoding heat shock proteins involved in many stress responses, UspA and GrpE, were fused with the green fluorescent protein (gfp) gene. Thus, the expression of the two genes could be quantified by measuring the fluorescence emitted by the cells under different environmental conditions. The heat resistance levels of starved and nonstarved cells during storage at 5, 10, and 37°C were compared with the levels of expression of the uspA and grpE genes. D52-values (times required for decimal reductions in count at 52°C) increased by 11.5, 14.6, and 18.5 min when cells were starved for 3 h at 37°C, for 24 h at 10°C, and for 2 days at 5°C, respectively. In all cases, these increases were significant (P < 0.01), indicating that the stress imposed by starvation altered the ability of E. coli O157:H7 to survive subsequent heat treatments. Thermal tolerance was correlative with the induction of UspA and GrpE. At 5°C, the change in the thermal tolerance of the pathogen was positively linked to the induced expression of the grpE gene but negatively related to the expression of the uspA gene. The results obtained in this study indicate that UspA plays an important role in starvation-induced thermal tolerance at 37°C but that GrpE may be more involved in regulating this response at lower temperatures. An improvement in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in these cross-protection responses may make it possible to devise strategies to limit their effects.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela A. Fernández ◽  
Juan Diego Gaitán-Espitia ◽  
Pablo P. Leal ◽  
Matthias Schmid ◽  
Andrew T. Revill ◽  
...  

2005 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Säkkinen ◽  
J. Tornberg ◽  
P. J. Goddard ◽  
E. Eloranta ◽  
E. Dahl ◽  
...  

AbstractPlasma cortisol concentrations were determined from the blood of eight mature female reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) after an intravenous injection of either saline (control) or 100, 250 or 500 μg of synthetic ACTH. Blood samples were collected at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 120, 150, and 180 min after the injections. The aims were to determine the appropriate dose of ACTH for adrenal stimulation tests, to define the dose level of ACTH which elicited a maximal cortisol response and to describe the range of blood cortisol concentrations for reference when evaluating the stress responses of reindeer.The mean plasma cortisol concentrations (s.e.) at the zero sample times (t0) of the control and the ACTH treatments varied between 93·4 (11·8) and 132·5 (18·1) nmol/l. The total plasma cortisol response (area under curve, AUC, nmol/l × min) increased with increasing dose of ACTH (P < 0·001). The AUC of the control treatment was significantly smaller than of the ACTH treatments (P < 0·001). The highest dose of ACTH (500 μg) gave a significantly bigger AUC than the lowest dose (100 μg) (P = 0·008). The maximal plasma cortisol concentrations (CMAX) were achieved within 60 min of the ACTH injections. The ranges of individual CMAX were 59·0 to 136·8 nmol/l for the control treatment, and 110·0 to 252·0, 152·0 to 247·5 and 135·1 to 257·1 nmol/l for 100, 250 and 500 μg ACTH, respectively. The difference in CMAX was significant between the control treatment and the ACTH treatments (P < 0·001) but not between the different doses of ACTH. The plasma cortisol concentrations at the end of the observation period at t180 were not significantly affected by the ACTH treatment (P > 0·05).In conclusion, the 100-μg dose of ACTH was sufficient to produce a significant cortisol response compared with the control treatment. Increasing the dose did not increase the maximal response, but tended to elongate the response profile. The blood sampling frequency used in the study was found suitable for detection of the cortisol response in reindeer.


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