The effects of polyunsaturated fatty acid enrichment on acute heat and light-realated stress tolerance of the scleractinian coral, Galaxea fascicularis Linnaeus 1767

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the assimilation of polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) of a scleractinian coral, Galaxea fascicularis in enrichment. After that, the trend of PUFA accumulation in corals was determined by optimum time of PUFA enrichment. This study had also investigated the survival rate of starved and PUFA-enriched G. fascicularis in stress and the effects of different types of stressors on the PUFA composition of the corals. Lastly, the effects of different treatments on the coral’s PUFA recovery rate after a stress event were also examined. Previous studies on coral’s PUFAs are mainly concentrated during the actual stress event rather than the post-stress recovery period. The roles of PUFAs in coral stress studies remained unclear. In this study, two main components in the corals were examined: 1) the PUFA accumulation trend; and 2) the effects of heat and high light intensity stress. Firstly, the corals were fed with non-enriched and PUFA-enriched Artemia with starved corals as control for the durations of 1 week, 2 weeks, 5 weeks and 10 weeks.