The effects of the red tide producing dinoflagellate, Karenia brevis, and associated brevetoxins on viability and sublethal stress responses in scleractinian coral: a potential regional stressor to coral reefs

• Main Author: Reynolds, David A
• Format: Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: UNF Digital Commons 2018
• Subjects: Thesis; University of North Florida; UNF; Dissertations; Academic > UNF > Master of Science in Biology; Academic > UNF > Biology; Coral; Red Tide; Karenia brevis; Bleaching; Proteomics; Regional Stressor; Behavior and Ethology; Bioinformatics; Biology; Marine Biology; Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Toxicology; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/etd/829; https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1879&context=etd

Coral cover is in decline on a global scale, with increased mortality events being attributed to a number of global and regional stressors. While the impacts of global stressors (e.g. sea surface temperature rise, ocean acidification) are well documented, there is growing interest in identifying and understanding the impacts of regional stressors. The reason for this change in focus is that regional stressors can often work in combination, sometimes synergistically, with global stressors and that stressors on a regional scale tend to be more easily mitigated by management practices. One regional stressor that impacts a myriad of marine organisms in the southeastern United States is the annual red tide blooms produced by the dinoflagellate, Karenia brevis. Their impacts, along with the lipid soluble polyether neurotoxins they produce, termed brevetoxins, are well studied in economically important organisms, such as bivalves. However, little is known of their impacts on organisms that possess ecological importance, such as species of scleractinian coral. To address this gap in knowledge, a multifaceted study is discussed herein, which evaluated the effects of ecologically relevant concentrations of K. brevis and associated brevetoxins on different coral life history stages and coral species. The second chapter addresses the impacts of red tide on larval behavior, settlement and survival of the coral species Porites astreoides, as well as impacts of photochemical efficiency and oxidative stress within different coral species (P. astreoides larvae, P. astreoides adults, Acropora cervicornis, Cladocora arbuscula, and Phyllangia americana). The third chapter confers the use of broad-scale proteomic analysis to identify the cellular response of the non-model coral species, P. astreoides, following exposure to red tide. Coral larvae actively avoided both medium and high bloom conditions of K. brevis and brevetoxins, while percent larval settlement and survival were impacted following exposure to high bloom ...