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Dissepiments, density bands and signatures of thermal stress in Porites skeletons

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Abstract

The skeletons of many reef-building corals are accreted with rhythmic structural patterns that serve as valuable sclerochronometers. Annual high- and low-density band couplets, visible in X-radiographs or computed tomography scans, are used to construct age models for paleoclimate reconstructions and to track variability in coral growth over time. In some corals, discrete, anomalously high-density bands, called “stress bands,” preserve information about coral bleaching. However, the mechanisms underlying the formation of coral skeletal density banding remain unclear. Dissepiments—thin, horizontal sheets of calcium carbonate accreted by the coral to support the living polyp—play a key role in the upward growth of the colony. Here, we first conducted a vital staining experiment to test whether dissepiments were accreted with lunar periodicity in Porites coral skeleton, as previously hypothesized. Over 6, 15, and 21 months, dissepiments consistently formed in a 1:1 ratio to the number of full moons elapsed over each study period. We measured dissepiment spacing to reconstruct multiple years of monthly skeletal extension rates in two Porites colonies from Palmyra Atoll and in another from Palau that bleached in 1998 under anomalously high sea temperatures. Spacing between successive dissepiments exhibited strong seasonality in corals containing annual density bands, with narrow (wide) spacing associated with high (low) density, respectively. A high-density “stress band” accreted during the 1998 bleaching event was associated with anomalously low dissepiment spacing and missed dissepiments, implying that thermal stress disrupts skeletal extension. Further, uranium/calcium ratios increased within stress bands, indicating a reduction in the carbonate ion concentration of the coral’s calcifying fluid under stress. Our study verifies the lunar periodicity of dissepiments, provides a mechanistic basis for the formation of annual density bands in Porites, and reveals the underlying cause of high-density stress bands.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Yimnang Golbuu (Palau International Coral Reef Center) for assistance with permits and hosting us at PICRC, Hannah Barkley, G.P. Lohmann, Chip Young, and Kathryn Pietro for help with fieldwork, Burnham Petrographics for mounting and polishing sections, and Horst Marschall for assistance with microscope analyses. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This work was supported by NSF Grants OCE 1220529 and OCE 1605365 awarded to A.L. Cohen, a WHOI Ocean Ventures Fund award to T.M. DeCarlo, a WHOI Coastal Ocean Institute award to T.M. DeCarlo, and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to T.M. DeCarlo.

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Correspondence to Thomas M. DeCarlo.

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DeCarlo, T.M., Cohen, A.L. Dissepiments, density bands and signatures of thermal stress in Porites skeletons. Coral Reefs 36, 749–761 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-017-1566-9

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