Repetitive sex change in the stony coral Herpolitha limax across a wide geographic range

Lee Eyal-Shaham; Gal Eyal; Kazuhiko Sakai; Yoko Nozawa; Saki Harii; Frederic Sinniger; Omri Bronstein; Or Ben-Zvi; Tom Shlesinger; Yossi Loya

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-37619-y

Repetitive sex change in the stony coral Herpolitha limax across a wide geographic range

Lee Eyal-Shaham, Gal Eyal, Kazuhiko Sakai, Yoko Nozawa, Saki Harii, Frederic Sinniger, Omri Bronstein, Or Ben-Zvi, Tom Shlesinger, Yossi Loya

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Sex change has been widely studied in animals and plants. However, the conditions favoring sex change, its mode and timing remain poorly known. Here, for the first time in stony corals, we report on a protandrous (youngest individuals are males) repetitive sex change exhibited by the fungiid coral Herpolitha limax across large spatial scales (the coral reefs of Japan, Jordan and Israel) and temporal scales (2004–2017). In contrast to most corals, this species is a daytime spawner (08:00–10:00 AM) that spawned at the same time/same date across all the study sites. The sporadically scattered populations of H. limax among the coral reefs of Eilat (Israel) and Aqaba (Jordan) exhibited significantly slower growth, earlier sex change, and lower percentages of reproduction and sex change in comparison to the densely aggregated populations in Okinawa (Japan). At all sites, sex ratio varied among years, but was almost always biased towards maleness. Growth rate decreased with size. We conclude that comparable to dioecious plants that display labile sexuality in response to energetic and/or environmental constraints, the repetitive sex change displayed by H. limax increases its overall fitness reinforcing the important role of reproductive plasticity in the Phylum Cnidaria in determining their evolutionary success.

Original language	English
Article number	2936
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	9
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-37619-y
State	Published - 27 Feb 2019
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).

Funding

We thank the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences at Eilat (IUI), the Marine Sciences Station in Aqaba (MSS) and the Tropical Biosphere Research Center Sesoko Station for the logistical support. We are indebted to I. Hosgin, P. Cabaitan, O. Levy, Y. Nakano, R. Prasetia, J. Bergman and T. Eyal for help with the field work in Okinawa and to B. Feldman, R. Tamir, H. Rapuano, T. Amit, N. Kramer, M. Grinblat, A. Alamaru, E. Winter, I. Brikner and other members of the Loya lab for help throughout the years with the field work in Aqaba and Eilat. We thank O. Mann for assistance in the statistical analyses. This study was partially supported by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) No. 341/12 and 1191/16 and the U.S. Middle East Regional Cooperation (MERC) Program Agency for International Development (MERC/USAID) No. M32-037 to YL.

Funders	Funder number
MERC
MERC/USAID
Program Agency for International Development
U.S. Middle East Regional Cooperation
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science	16H02490
Israel Science Foundation	1191/16, 341/12

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abstract = "Sex change has been widely studied in animals and plants. However, the conditions favoring sex change, its mode and timing remain poorly known. Here, for the first time in stony corals, we report on a protandrous (youngest individuals are males) repetitive sex change exhibited by the fungiid coral Herpolitha limax across large spatial scales (the coral reefs of Japan, Jordan and Israel) and temporal scales (2004–2017). In contrast to most corals, this species is a daytime spawner (08:00–10:00 AM) that spawned at the same time/same date across all the study sites. The sporadically scattered populations of H. limax among the coral reefs of Eilat (Israel) and Aqaba (Jordan) exhibited significantly slower growth, earlier sex change, and lower percentages of reproduction and sex change in comparison to the densely aggregated populations in Okinawa (Japan). At all sites, sex ratio varied among years, but was almost always biased towards maleness. Growth rate decreased with size. We conclude that comparable to dioecious plants that display labile sexuality in response to energetic and/or environmental constraints, the repetitive sex change displayed by H. limax increases its overall fitness reinforcing the important role of reproductive plasticity in the Phylum Cnidaria in determining their evolutionary success.",

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Repetitive sex change in the stony coral Herpolitha limax across a wide geographic range

Abstract

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