Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
DOI
10.7717/peerj.19987
Publication Title
PeerJ
Volume
13
Pages
e19987
Abstract
Caribbean reefs face increasingly frequent and intense bleaching events, adding to the numerous other threats impacting these ecosystems. Addressing these challenges requires global action to reduce climate drivers, along with local efforts like reef restoration. Active restoration using thermotolerant coral colonies offers a potential strategy to alleviate these impacts; however, gaps remain in identifying context-specific temperature thresholds to guide colony selection and standardize thermotolerance assessment methods. This study addressed these gaps in two phases. First, by determining practical thresholds to differentiate species responses to heat stress; and second, by developing a framework to identify and prioritize resilient colonies for restoration. In the first phase, 70 colonies of Acropora cervicornis, Diploria labyrinthiformis, Montastraea cavernosa, Orbicella annularis, O. faveolata, Porites astreoides, and P. porites were sampled from reefs in the southeastern Dominican Republic. Heat stress responses were assessed through 3-hour heat pulse assays above the local maximum monthly mean (MMM) temperature, combining visual bleaching ranks, pixel intensity as a proxy for chlorophyll loss, and pulse amplitude modulated (PAM) fluorometry. Species-specific T₅₀ thresholds were identified as the temperatures where 50% of colonies showed signs of stress. In the second phase, intraspecific thermotolerance was further examined for D. labyrinthiformis, M. cavernosa, O. annularis, O. faveolata, and P. astreoides using 99 colonies from known parent sources. Heat pulse assays at control (MMM) and T₅₀ temperatures were repeated four times to assign colony-specific thermal performance scores. This study integrates inter- and intraspecific thermotolerance data into a practical selection framework, offering valuable insights to guide restoration under climate change.
Rights
© 2025 Blanco Pimentel et al.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original authors, title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Data Availability
Article states: "The following information was supplied regarding data availability: The data is available at figshare: Blanco Pimentel, Macarena; Calle-Triviño, Johanna; Barshis, Daniel; E.T. Van Der Meij, Sancia; Morikawa, Megan K. (2025). Building heat-resilient Caribbean reefs: Integrating thermal thresholds and coral colonies selection in restoration. figshare. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28292339.v1."
Original Publication Citation
Blanco Pimentel, M., Calle-Triviño, J., Barshis, D. J., van der Meij, S. E. T., & Morikawa, M. K. (2025). Building heat-resilient Caribbean reefs: Integrating thermal thresholds and coral colonies selection in restoration. PeerJ, 13, Article e19987. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.19987
Repository Citation
Pimentel, Macarena Blanco; Calle-Triviño, Johanna; Barshis, Daniel J.; van der Meij, Sancia E. T.; and Morikawa, Megan K., "Building Heat-Resilient Caribbean Reefs: Integrating Thermal Thresholds and Coral Colonies Selection in Restoration" (2025). Biological Sciences Faculty Publications. 658.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/biology_fac_pubs/658
ORCID
0000-0003-1510-8375 (Barshis)
Sample collection dates and sites; Backup statistics; Averaged raw values of FvFm and pixel intensity; Thermotolerance scores across species and reefs
Supplementary_materials_S2.docx (1604 kB)
Thermotolerance scoring procedure
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