Nature & Nurture Helps Corals In Hot Water - Credit: Megan Morikawa In an interesting new development, Stanford University researchers led by biology Professor Steve Palumbi have shown that some corals can adjust their internal functions to tolerate hot water 50 times faster than they would adapt through evolutionary change alone. The corals Palumbi’s group studied adjusted themselves ‘on the fly’ by switching on or off certain genes, depending on the local temperature. Gathered during an innovative experiment in the waters of American Samoa which saw colonies transplanted from a warm pool to a nearby cool pool and vice versa, the findings make clear that some corals can stave-off the effects of ocean warming through a double-decker combination of adaptation based on genetic makeup and physiological adjustment to local conditions. “These results tell us that both nature and nurture play a role in deciding how heat-tolerant a coral colony is,” Palumbi said. “Nurture, the effect of environment, can change heat tolerance much more quickly — within the lifetime of one coral rather than over many generations.” Palumbi cautions however that this doesn’t mean that corals can respond to indefinite temperature increases and they could also be compromised by stressors such as acidification and pollution. Still, if it holds true for most corals, this adaptive ability could provide a “cushion” for survival and might give coral reefs a few extra decades of fighting back the harsh effects of climate change. Via ScienceDaily
Posted on: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 17:30:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015