Data from: Genomic determinants of coral heat tolerance across latitudes
Data files
May 22, 2016 version files 44.05 MB
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Amillepora_linkageMapData_dixon2015.txt
216.47 KB
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Amillepora_transcriptome_annotations_dixon2015.zip
37.22 MB
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dixon15_larvalHeatSurvival.csv
8.28 KB
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dixon15_tagSeq_adultCounts.txt
3.04 MB
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dixon15_tagSeq_larvalCounts.txt
3.56 MB
Abstract
As global warming continues, reef-building corals could avoid local population declines through “genetic rescue” involving exchange of heat-tolerant genotypes across latitudes, but only if latitudinal variation in thermal tolerance is heritable. Here, we show an up–to–10-fold increase in odds of survival of coral larvae under heat stress when their parents come from a warmer lower-latitude location. Elevated thermal tolerance was associated with heritable differences in expression of oxidative, extracellular, transport, and mitochondrial functions that indicated a lack of prior stress. Moreover, two genomic regions strongly responded to selection for thermal tolerance in interlatitudinal crosses. These results demonstrate that variation in coral thermal tolerance across latitudes has a strong genetic basis and could serve as raw material for natural selection.