Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: MARIA CAROLINA DE OLIVEIRA PACHECO

Uma banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : MARIA CAROLINA DE OLIVEIRA PACHECO
DATE: 23/11/2023
TIME: 13:30
LOCAL: Departamento de Oceanografia e Limnologia (DOL/UFRN)
TITLE:

Do environments with greater temperature variability select thermally resistant corals?

KEY WORDS:

coral; global changes; thermal stress; tolerance; environmental variability

PAGES: 29
BIG AREA: Ciências Biológicas
AREA: Ecologia
SUMMARY:

Global changes have been causing increase the in frequency and severity of coral bleaching events, contributing to coral mass mortality and reef degradation. Despite that, in some reefs, corals show different susceptibilities to bleaching and distinct abilities to recover after stress events, as some corals have bleached less and survived more under thermal anomalies. This pattern might be related to natural temperature variability in corals’ origin sites, which may influence different coral mechanisms to cope with thermal stress, be it through adaptation or acclimatization to local conditions. We conducted laboratory and field experiments with Siderastrea stellata colonies from habitats with high (tide pools), medium (shallow reef; 2m) and low temperature variability (deep reef; 28m), to evaluate coral response to thermal stress and its potential to acclimatize in environments with different temperature dynamics. Tide pool corals bleached less and did not suffer great decrease in photosynthetic efficiency when exposed to thermal stress, whereas corals from more thermally stable environments (shallow and deep) showed higher vulnerability to bleaching and underwent alarming decrease in photosynthetic efficiency. Deep reef corals also bleached and suffered reduction in photosynthetic efficiency when they were transplanted to reefs with more prominent temperature variation. Our results revealed that tide pool corals are more resistant than corals from from shallow and deep reefs, suggesting that high temperature variability selects tolerance mechanisms that favour corals permanence in these thermally variable sites, while also making them more prepared to deal with climate change.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Presidente - 2319234 - GUILHERME ORTIGARA LONGO
Interna - 2412921 - JULIANA DEO DIAS
Externa à Instituição - MARIANA MITSUE TESCHIMA