Meeting Abstract
In broadcast spawning reef-building corals, the length of the larval competency period and the rate of lipid depletion both contribute to a larva’s ability to disperse to new environments. Coral larvae also expend their limited energy reserves to produce costly GFP-like fluorescent proteins (FPs), however the biological function of FPs in this stage is unknown. Fluorescence has been suspected to play a role in dispersal potential since a previous study showed that fluorescent color morphs settle at different proportions after early exposure to settlement cue, suggesting red morphs are primed for long-distance dispersal. To further investigate the possible link between fluorescence and dispersal potential we measured larval fluorescence, settlement competency, lipid content and global gene expression throughout thirteen days post-fertilization in Acropora millepora. Expression of FP genes is tightly regulated throughout larval development, but the best correlations with larval competency were observed not at the transcript abundance level but at the protein level (assessed by fluorescence intensity). There are also differences in expression between the different colored FPs (red, green and cyan) through time, suggesting that each may play a unique functional role during the larval stage. Global gene expression changes through time were subject to weighted gene co-expression network analysis to elucidate molecular pathways that are co-regulated with changes in FPs, giving insight into the possible biological function of coral FPs through this critically important life-history stage.
