‘Omics of Natural Thermal Tolerance

We explore the molecular characteristics of naturally thermally tolerant and sensitive corals using an in situ library of colonies with differential bleaching sensitivity in Kāneʻohe Bay. This library, originally tagged in 2014 and 2015 by the Gates Coral Lab, includes pairs of adjacent, conspecific corals where one coral in the pair bleached during previous high temperature events and the other coral in the pair did not, exhibiting natural variation in thermal stress tolerance. This work involves genomic, metagenomic, metabolomic, and transcriptomic sampling of these corals in the field as well as heat stress experiments in the lab. These colonies represent a powerful framework for exploring the mechanisms underlying natural variation in thermal tolerance. 

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Ongoing Projects

  • Sequencing of parental phenotypes

  • Allele frequency signatures of selection during breeding of known parents

  • Single-polyp metabolomics

  • Spatial ecology of the coral holobiont

  • Metabolomic characterization of early life-history stages and transgenerational inheritance of biochemical signatures

Publications

Tortorelli G, Fisher NL, Varela AC, Rosset S, Ashely IA, Majerová A, Smith K, Hughes K, Drury C. Selective conservation of symbiont cell-surface glycans across generations in a vertically transmitting coral. ISME (2026). Link.

Johnston EC, Caruso C, Perez T, Miller S, Lau C, Drury C. Origin and impacts of ploidy variation in Pocillopora acuta in Hawaiʻi. Molecular Biology and Evolution (2026). Link.

Tortorelli G, Rosset S, Sullivan CES, Woo S, Johnston EC, Walker NS, Hancock JR, Caruso C, Varela A, Hughes K, Martin C, Quinn RA, Drury C. Heat-induced stress modulates cell surface glycans and membrane lipids of coral symbionts. ISME (2025). Link.

Roach TNF, Drury C, Caruso C, Hancock JR, Martin C, Neubauer K, Matsuda SB, McClinktock R, Santoro EP, van der Geer A, Varela A, Quinn RA. Intergenerational metabolomic signatures of bleaching resistance in corals. Nature Communications (2025). Link.

Roach TNF, Matsuda S, Martin CH, Huckeba G, Huckeba J, Kahkejian V, Santoro EP, Drury C, Quinn RA. Single-polyp metabolomics reveals inter- and intra-colony biochemical variation of the coral holobiont at multiple scales. Communications Biology (2023). Link.

Drury C, Bean N, Harris C, Hancock J, Huckeba J, Martin C, Roach T, Quinn R, Gates RD. Intrapopulation adaptive variance supports thermal tolerance in a reef-building coral. Communications Biology (2022). Link.

Caruso C, Rocha de Souza M, Ruiz-Jones L, Conetta D, Hancock J, Hobbs C, Kahkejian V, Kitchen R, Marin C, Monismith S, Madin J, Gates RD, Drury C. Genetic patterns in Montipora capitata across an environmental mosaic in Kāneʻohe Bay. Molecular Ecology (2022). Link.

Rocha de Souza M, Caruso C, Ruiz-Jones L, Drury C, Gates RD, Toonen RJ. Community composition of coral-associated Symbiodiniaceae is driven by fine-scale environmental gradients. Royal Society Open Science (2022). Link.

Drury C, Dilworth J, Majerová E, Caruso C, Greer JB. Expression plasticity regulates intraspecific variation in the acclimatization potential of a reef-building coral. Nature Communications (2022). Link.

Roach TNF, Dilworth J, Martin C, Jones D, Quinn R, Drury C. Metabolomic signatures of coral bleaching history. Nature Ecology and Evolution (2021). Link.

Drury C, Lirman D. Genotype by environment interactions in coral bleaching. Proceedings of the Royal Society (2021). Link.