Impact of winter ocean warming and reduced heterotrophy on the physiological response of the temperate coral Oculina arbuscula

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  • May 4, 2021
Creator
  • Christian, Tyler
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Biology
Abstract
  • Increasing sea surface temperatures from anthropogenic climate change cause significant stress to marine organisms. A plethora of studies have examined the response of corals to thermal stress under controlled laboratory conditions, which often led to bleaching or mortality of the corals. However, these studies have mainly focused on investigating the response of tropical corals to elevated summer seawater temperatures, leaving a gap in our understanding of how temperate corals are responding to elevated winter temperatures. In this study, we investigated the physiological response of the temperate coral, Oculina arbuscula, to end-of-century winter ocean warming and reduced food availability for heterotrophy predicted under climate change. Colonies of O. arbuscula were reared for 60 days in two temperature treatments, present-day winter average seawater temperature and elevated winter ocean temperature for predicted end-of-the-century conditions in the northwestern mid-Atlantic region. The corals were also exposed to two feeding treatments of freshly hatched Artemia sp. nauplii (low and normal) to examine the effects of heterotrophy on the net calcification rate of the corals. The results of this experiment showed that elevated winter temperatures caused increased calcification rates compared to present-day winter conditions. We also found that heterotrophy has little effect on growth rates for O. arbuscula. These findings could have important implications for our understanding of how corals might respond to future climate change effects.
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  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Castillo, Karl D.
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Marine Sciences
Degree
  • Bachelor of Science
Graduation year
  • 2021
Language
  • English

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