The ReFuGe 2020 Consortium—using “omics” approaches to explore the adaptability and resilience of coral holobionts to environmental change

• Published in: Frontiers in Marine Science
• Main Authors: Voolstra, Christian R., Miller, David J., Ragan, Mark A., Hoffmann, Ary A., Hoegh-Guldberg, Ove, Bourne, David G., Ball, Eldon E., Ying, Hua, Forêt, Sylvain, Takahashi, Shunichi, Weynberg, Karen D., van Oppen, Madeleine J H, Morrow, Kathleen, Chan, Cheong Xin, Rosic, Nedeljka, Leggat, William, Sprungala, Susanne, Imelfort, Michael, Tyson, Gene W., Kassahn, Karin S., Lundgren, Petra B., Beeden, Roger J., Ravasi, Timothy, Berumen, Michael L., Abal, Eva, Fyffe, Theresa
• Other Authors: Applied Mathematics and Computational Science Program, Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) Division, KAUST Environmental Epigenetics Research Program (KEEP), Marine Science Program, Red Sea Research Center (RSRC), ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, Comparative Genomics Centre, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD, Australia, ARC Centre of Excellence in Bioinformatics, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, Department of Genetics and Zoology, Bio21 Institute, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, Global Change Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Centre for Marine Microbiology and Genetics, Townsville, QLD, Australia, Division of Evolution, Ecology and Genetics, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia, Division of Environmental Photobiology, National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki, Japan, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Centre for Marine Microbiology and Genetics, Townsville, QLD, Australia, School of BioSciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, School of Pharmacy and Molecular Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD, Australia, Australian Centre for Ecogenomics, School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, Great Barrier Reef Foundation, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, SA Pathology, Women's and Children's Hospital, North Adelaide, Australia, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Townsville, QLD, Australia
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Frontiers Media SA 2015
• Subjects: Adaptation; Coral reef ecosystem; Global environmental change; Great Barrier Reef; Holobiont; Metaorganism; Red Sea; Resilience; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10754/625189; https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2015.00068

Human-induced environmental changes have been linked directly with loss of biodiversity. Coral reefs, which have been severely impacted by anthropogenic activities over the last few decades, exemplify this global problem and provide an opportunity to develop research addressing key knowledge gaps through Human-induced environmental changes have been linked directly with loss of biodiversity. Coral reefs, which have been severely impacted by anthropogenic activities over the last few decades, exemplify this global problem and provide an opportunity to develop research addressing key knowledge gaps through “omics”-based approaches. While many stressors, e.g., global warming, ocean acidification, overfishing, and coastal development have been identified, there is an urgent need to understand how corals function at a basic level in order to conceive strategies for mitigating future reef loss. In this regard, availability of fully sequenced genomes has been immensely valuable in providing answers to questions of organismal biology. Given that corals are metaorganisms comprised of the coral animal host, its intracellular photosynthetic algae, and associated microbiota (i.e., bacteria, archaea, fungi, viruses), these efforts must focus on entire coral holobionts. The Reef Future Genomics 2020 (ReFuGe 2020) Consortium has formed to sequence hologenomes of 10 coral species representing different physiological or functional groups to provide foundation data for coral reef adaptation research that is freely available to the research community.