Publications by authors named "Lupita Ruiz-Jones"
Article Synopsis
- Coral reefs, particularly in Kāne'ohe Bay, are significantly affected by climate change, which causes 'coral bleaching' due to heat stress disrupting the coral-algal symbiosis.
- A study of 600 Montipora capitata colonies found that, post-2019 bleaching, the heat-tolerant symbiont Durusdinium became more prevalent; however, the overall community composition remained mostly stable.
- Environmental factors like depth and temperature were identified as key drivers of symbiont composition, suggesting that corals have limitations in adapting their symbiont composition despite experiencing bleaching.
The survival of most reef-building corals is dependent upon a symbiosis between the coral and the community of Symbiodiniaceae. , one of the main reef-building coral species in Hawai'i, is known to host a diversity of symbionts, but it remains unclear how they change spatially and whether environmental factors drive those changes. Here, we surveyed the Symbiodiniaceae community in 600 colonies from 30 sites across Kāne'ohe Bay and tested for host specificity and environmental gradients driving spatial patterns of algal symbiont distribution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Spatial genetic structure (SGS) is crucial for how populations adapt to environmental changes, particularly in species that can reproduce both sexually and asexually, such as reef-building corals.
- In a study of nearly 600 Montipora capitata colonies in Kāne'ohe Bay, researchers found that asexual reproduction (clonal colonies) was relatively rare but significantly influenced spatial genetic distributions, especially in high wave energy areas.
- While environmental factors like temperature and wave height predicted some genetic variation, they only accounted for 5% of it, indicating that genetic diversity persists in this impacted ecosystem, suggesting potential for adaptation to environmental pressures.
For reef-building corals, extreme stress exposure can result in loss of endosymbionts, leaving colonies bleached. However, corals in some habitats are commonly exposed to natural cycles of sub-bleaching stress, often leading to higher stress tolerance. We monitored transcription in the tabletop coral daily for 17 days over a strong tidal cycle that included extreme temperature spikes, and show that increases in temperature above 30.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFReef-building corals experience high daily variation in their environment, food availability, and physiological activities such as calcification and photosynthesis by endosymbionts. On Ofu Island, American Samoa, we investigated day-night differences in gene expression under field conditions of changing pH, temperature, light, and oxygen. Using RNASeq techniques, we compared two replicate transcriptomes from a single coral colony of Acropora hyacinthus over six noons and five midnights.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF