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Temporal dynamics and plasticity in the cellular immune response of the sea fan coral, Gorgonia ventalina

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Abstract

The temporal dynamics of the invertebrate immune response often determines an organism’s success in responding to physiological stress, physical damage, and pathogens. To date, most immune challenge studies have been conducted under highly controlled laboratory conditions, with few attempts to study immune function in the wild. In this study, we characterized the temporal dynamics of the Caribbean sea fan, Gorgonia ventalina, cellular immune response [granular amoebocyte aggregation and prophenoloxidase (PPO) activation] to allogenic grafts in the laboratory and field using a clonally replicated design. Amoebocyte reaction time differed markedly between the lab (% amoebocyte surface area in tissue sections peaked at 2 days) and field (peak at 6 days). PPO activity decreased between 0 and 6 days after grafting in both ungrafted and grafted tissue, suggesting PPO is decoupled from other cellular components. The reaction norms of the fold induction in % amoebocyte area between disease-grafted and healthy-grafted tissue of each colony across time indicate high intercolony plasticity in cellular immune response. The plasticity between colonies was also evident in the magnitude of cellular immune response, ranging from a 0.88- to 1.60-fold increase in amoebocyte area between initial and 6 days for the disease-grafted tissue. With the demonstration of highly dynamic cnidarian cellular immune responses, our study expands understanding of the evolutionary ecology of metazoan immune defense mechanisms.

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Acknowledgments

We thank E. Bartels of the Mote Tropical Research Laboratory on Summerland Key for collecting the corals used in the laboratory experiment under Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary permit number FKNMS-2008-001. We thank D. Anderson, S. Harris, A. Anton, and V. Schutte for field support. Funding support was provided by National Geographic and the National Science Foundation grant number OCE0849776. Partial funding was provided by the GEF-World Bank CRTR program to E. Weil, and the Department of Marine Sciences, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, provided partial funding and logistical support. Thanks to C. Burge, M. Mouchka, A. Tracy, N. Douglas, E. Peters, J. Thaler and I. Hewson for manuscript reviews.

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  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Courtney S. Couch & C. Drew Harvell

  2. Department of Marine Sciences, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, PR, 00680, USA

    Ernesto Weil

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  1. Courtney S. Couch
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Correspondence to Courtney S. Couch.

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Communicated by T. Reusch.

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Couch, C.S., Weil, E. & Harvell, C.D. Temporal dynamics and plasticity in the cellular immune response of the sea fan coral, Gorgonia ventalina . Mar Biol 160, 2449–2460 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-013-2240-6

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