Biology subjects

Rocha de Souza, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Rocha de Souza, M..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Stony Coral Symbioses Show Variable Responses to Future Ocean Conditions

Coral reefs support over a quarter of marine species and nearly a billion people worldwide but are also among the ecosystems most threatened by anthropogenic impacts. There is long-standing debate about whether coral symbioses will be disrupted or respond adaptively under future ocean conditions. Using a factorial 2.5-year future-ocean mesocosm experiment across eight coral species representing the major coral lineages, we tracked symbiont community shifts within replicate fragments from the same individual coral. Some corals exhibited stochastic divergence consistent with dysbiosis, whereas others showed deterministic, thermally adaptive shifts. Heat stress generally reduced symbiont diversity and promoted predictable restructuring, supporting deterministic processes under moderate stress but stochastic dysbiosis under extreme conditions. We propose that adaptive and stochastic responses represent endpoints along a continuum of host-orchestrated symbiont sorting. This study bridges coral reef ecology with broader host-microbiome theory, offering an integrated perspective on how symbiotic systems may respond to environmental change. TeaserLong-term experiments reveal that corals follow distinct paths of symbiont change under heat stress, from adaptation to dysbiosis

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2025

A high-resolution diel survey of surface ocean metagenomes, metatranscriptomes, and transfer RNA transcripts

The roles of marine microbes in ecosystem processes are inherently linked to their ability to sense, respond, and ultimately adapt to environmental change. Capturing the nuances of this perpetual dialogue and its long-term implications requires insight into the subtle drivers of microbial responses to environmental change that are most accessible at the shortest scales of time. Here, we present a multi-omics dataset comprising surface ocean metagenomes, metatranscriptomes, tRNA transcripts, and biogeochemical measurements, collected every 1.5 hours for 48 hours at two stations within coastal and adjacent offshore waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean. We expect that this integrated dataset of multiple sequence types and environmental parameters will facilitate novel insights into microbial ecology, microbial physiology, and ocean biogeochemistry and help investigate the different mechanisms of adaptation that drive microbial responses to environmental change.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2022

Fine-scale variability in coral bleaching and mortality during a marine heatwave

Coral bleaching and mortality can show significant spatial and taxonomic heterogeneity at local scales, highlighting the need to understand the fine-scale drivers and impacts of thermal stress. In this study, we used structure-from-motion photogrammetry to track coral bleaching, mortality, and changes in community composition during the 2019 marine heatwave in K[a]ne ohe Bay, Hawai i. We surveyed 30 shallow reef patches every 3 weeks for the duration of the bleaching event (August-December) and one year after, resulting in a total of 210 large-area, high-resolution photomosaics that enabled us to follow the fate of thousands of coral colonies through time. We also measured environmental variables such as temperature, sedimentation, depth, and wave velocity at each of these sites, and extracted estimates of habitat complexity (rugosity R and fractal dimension D) from digital elevation models to better understand their effects on patterns of bleaching and mortality. We found that up to 80% of corals experienced moderate to severe bleaching in this period, with peak bleaching occurring in October when heat stress (DHW) reached its maximum. Mortality continued to accumulate as bleaching levels dropped, driving large declines in more heat-susceptible species (77% loss of Pocillopora cover) and moderate declines in heat-tolerant species (19% and 23% for Porites compressa and Montipora capitata, respectively). Declines in live coral were accompanied by a rapid increase in algal cover across the survey sites. Spatial differences in bleaching were significantly linked to habitat complexity and coral species composition, with reefs that were dominated by Pocillopora experiencing the most severe bleaching. Mortality was also influenced by species composition, fractal dimension, and site-level differences in thermal stress. Our results show that spatial heterogeneity in the impacts of bleaching are driven by a mix of environmental variation, habitat complexity, and differences in assemblage composition.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2022

Coral environmental history is primary driver of algal symbiont composition, despite a mass bleaching event

Coral reefs are iconic examples of climate change impacts because climate-induced heat stress causes the breakdown of the coral-algal symbiosis leading to a spectacular loss of color, termed coral bleaching. To examine the fine-scale dynamics of this process, we re-sampled 600 individually marked Montipora capitata colonies from across K[a]ne ohe Bay, Hawaii and compared the algal symbiont composition before and after the 2019 bleaching event. The relative proportion of the heat-tolerant symbiont Durusdinium in corals increased in most parts of the bay following the bleaching event. Despite this widespread increase in abundance of Durusdinium, the overall algal symbiont community composition was largely unchanged, and hydrodynamically defined regions of the bay retained their distinct pre-bleaching compositions. Furthermore, depth and temperature variability were the most significant drivers of Symbiodiniaceae community composition by site regardless of bleaching intensity or change in relative proportion of Durusdinium. Our results suggest that the plasticity of symbiont composition in corals may be constrained to adaptively match the long-term environmental conditions surrounding the holobiont, independent of an individual corals stress and bleaching response.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

Genetic patterns in Montipora capitata across an environmental mosaic in Kaneohe Bay

Spatial genetic structure (SGS) is important to a populations ability to adapt to environmental change. For species that reproduce both sexually and asexually, the relative contribution of each reproductive mode has important ecological and evolutionary implications because asexual reproduction can have a strong effect on SGS. Reef building corals reproduce sexually, but many species also propagate asexually under certain conditions. In order to understand SGS and the relative importance of reproductive mode across environmental gradients, we evaluated genetic relatedness in almost 600 colonies of Montipora capitata across 30 environmentally characterized sites in K[a]neohe Bay, Oahu, Hawaii using low-depth restriction digest associated sequencing. Clonal colonies were relatively rare overall but influenced SGS. Clones were located significantly closer to one another spatially than average colonies and were more frequent on sites where wave energy was relatively high, suggesting a strong role of mechanical breakage in their formation. Excluding clones, we found no evidence of isolation by distance within sites or across the bay. Several environmental characteristics were significant predictors of the underlying genetic variation (including degree heating weeks, time spent above 30{degrees}C, depth, sedimentation rate and wave height); however, they only explained 5% of this genetic variation. Our results show that colony fragmentation contributes to the ecology of M. capitata at local scales and that genetic diversity is maintained despite strong environmental gradients in a highly impacted ecosystem, suggesting potential for broad adaptation or acclimatization in this population.

ecology↗