Artificial Selection of Coral Larval Heat Tolerance: RRAP ECT 2.1

Australian Ocean Data Network hosts data from an experiment testing artificial selection for coral larval heat tolerance to support large-scale restoration. The study phenotyped and bred Acropora spathulata colonies, subjected their larvae to three thermal stress treatments (27°C, 33°C, 35°C), and deployed survivors in a field seeding experiment. The dataset likely contains results on larval mortality, genetic bottleneck effects, and recruit performance under field conditions.

Use Cases

• Assessing the efficacy of artificial selection for coral heat tolerance based on larval mortality across temperature treatments.
• Analyzing potential genetic bottlenecks in larval cultures resulting from selective thermal stress.
• Evaluating field performance trade-offs of artificially selected coral recruits post-deployment.
• Comparing laboratory-based thermal tolerance phenotypes with outcomes in complex reef environments.

Strengths

• Based on a controlled experiment with three defined temperature treatments (Ambient 27°C, Sub-lethal 33°C, lethal Selection 35°C).
• Includes field-based validation, moving beyond purely aquarium-controlled conditions.
• Dataset is hosted on a national data network (Australian Ocean Data Network), suggesting institutional curation.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing: no column names, row counts, or specific data structure are provided.
• The description is truncated and repeated across entries, indicating incomplete documentation.
• License and author information are not specified.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network; experiment conducted by AIMS (Australian Institute of Marine Science).

Collection Method

Field and laboratory experiment: gravid Acropora spathulata colonies were collected from Davies Reef (October 2023), spawned at the AIMS National Sea Simulator, larvae subjected to thermal stress, and survivors settled on tiles for field deployment.

Time Range

Primary collection and experiment in October 2023.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-16 23:57:32.319021

Geography

Davies Reef, Bindal Sea Country, Great Barrier Reef (S18.81958°, E147.63129°).