Abstract Summary
Cellular stress memory is an important and conserved feature across the tree of life. A growing body of evidence in the literature suggests corals may have a thermal stress memory. Indeed, knowledge of coral stress memory could improve restoration outcomes. To elicit thermal stress memory in the lab, nearshore nursery-reared Acropora cervicornis fragments (n=8 genets) from Broward County, Florida were primed with five distinct thermal exposures, allowed to recover for 8 days, then exposed to a bleaching assay. Symbiont density, chlorophyll, dark-adapted chlorophyll fluorescence, and algal protein content were measured immediately after priming, after the 8-day recovery period, and after bleaching to determine whether priming conferred any bleaching resistance. Our results revealed an increase in bleaching resistance in two priming treatments, however only one treatment was not significantly different from the control group. Perhaps thermal priming of corals may require a priming exposure that is ‘just right’ to confer the maximum benefit to new fragments or outplants. Implications for restoration are discussed.
