Fast and pervasive transcriptomic resilience and acclimation of extremely heat-tolerant coral holobionts from the northern Red Sea
Romain Savary, Daniel J. Barshis, Christian R. Voolstra, Anny Cárdenas, Nicolas R. Evensen, Guilhem Banc‐Prandi, Maoz Fine, Anders Meibom
Abstract
Significance Coral reefs are in catastrophic decline worldwide, in part due to increasingly warm surface waters that cause mass coral bleaching and mortality. However, corals in the northern Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba have shown no sign of bleaching, despite local seawater temperature rising faster than the global average. We show that the exceptional heat tolerance of the common symbiotic reef-building coral Stylophora pistillata from the Gulf of Aqaba is based on a rapid gene expression response and recovery pattern when exposed to heat stress up to 32 °C. Such temperatures are not anticipated to occur in the region within this century, giving real hope for the preservation of at least one major coral reef ecosystem for future generations.