Fig. 3: Response to selective breeding for heat tolerance.
From: Selective breeding enhances coral heat tolerance to marine heatwaves
Selection for short- (a, c, e, g) and long-term (b, d, f, h) heat stress tolerance comparing parents and adult offspring (F1). Distributions of heat tolerance (kernel density of ΔDHW50, the heat stress dosage at which a colony’s BSI passes 0.5) in the source population to short- (a) and long-term (b) heat stress exposures (n = 31 and n = 65 colonies exposed to short- and long-term stress, respectively). Heat tolerance of selected parent colonies (‘P’ in the colony ID) is indicated by vertical lines for low (red) and high (blue) heat tolerance. c, d Matrices show crosses conducted, either low-low (LL, red), high-high (HH, blue), or low-high (purple), highlighting those from which between low- (red) and high-tolerant (blue) parents, based on short- (no individuals survived until offspring heat stress (X). e, f Offspring heat tolerance distributions between LL (red) and HH (blue) are significantly different based on Linear Mixed Models (e, z = 5.188/84, P = 3 × 10−7; f, z = 2.743/39, P = 0.008). g, h Progression of instantaneous BSI for each offspring colony (faint lines and points coloured by F1 DHW50) throughout the heat stress exposure, in terms of DHW. The overall high- or low-selected sigmoidal BSI-DHW responses (black lines and shaded 95% confidence intervals) show significantly different intercepts between LL and HH crosses based on Generalised Linear Mixed Models (g, z = 5.3880/875, P = 1 × 10−7; h, z = 31280/1275, P = 0.002). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
