Protecting diversity on coral reefs: DNA may hold the key

Posted on by Brooks Bays
Image of fish and coral reef in PMNM
Fish and coral reef in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. (credit: James Watt, courtesy of PMNM/ NOAA)
 Coral reefs are widely known for their stunning array of color, shape and forms of life, making them a model for extreme biodiversity. Hidden within the multitude of reef inhabitants, but no less important, is their genetic diversity— variability in DNA that gives species the capacity for adaptation, speciation and resilience in the face of stress.

Research published on April 27 by a team of scientists from SOEST, the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), University of St. Andrews and University of Melbourne discovered that large areas of intact coral reef with extensive live coral cover, not disturbed by humans or climate change, harbor the greatest amount of genetic diversity.

The team, led by Kimberly Selkoe, associate researcher at the UH Mānoa Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) and UCSB, assessed genetic diversity from more than 17,000 samples taken from 47 common reef-associated species across the Hawaiian Archipelago. With this work, the researchers uncovered a link between species diversity of an ecosystem and the genetic diversity encoded within the DNA of those species.

Read more about it in the UH System News and listen to the interview with Kim Selkoe at Hawaii Public Radio.

UPDATE: See the article discussing this research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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