Data from: Cascading effects of thermally-induced anemone bleaching on associated anemonefish hormonal stress response and reproduction

Organisms can behaviorally, physiologically, and morphologically adjust to environmental variation via integrative hormonal mechanisms, ultimately allowing animals to cope with environmental change. The stress response to environmental and social changes commonly promotes survival at the expense of reproduction. However, despite climate change impacts on population declines and diversity loss, few studies have attributed hormonal stress responses, or their regulatory effects, to climate change in the wild. Here, we report hormonal and fitness responses of individual wild fish to a recent large-scale sea warming event that caused widespread bleaching on coral reefs. This 14-month monitoring study shows a strong correlation between anemone bleaching (zooxanthellae loss), anemonefish stress response, and reproductive hormones that decreased fecundity by 73%. These findings suggest that hormone stress responses play a crucial role in changes to population demography following climate change and plasticity in hormonal responsiveness may be a key mechanism enabling individual acclimation to climate change.生物可通过整合的激素调控机制，在行为、生理与形态层面适应环境变化，最终帮助动物应对环境变迁。针对环境与社会变化的应激反应通常会以牺牲繁殖为代价，提升个体生存几率。然而，尽管气候变化已导致种群衰退与生物多样性丧失，但野外环境中鲜有研究将激素应激反应及其调控效应与气候变化建立关联。在此，我们报道了野生鱼类个体对近期一场引发珊瑚礁大面积白化的大规模海洋升温事件的激素响应与适合度（fitness）响应。这项为期14个月的监测研究显示，海葵白化（虫黄藻（zooxanthellae）流失）、海葵鱼（anemonefish）的应激反应，与导致繁殖力（fecundity）下降73%的生殖激素水平变化之间存在显著相关性。本研究结果表明，激素应激反应在气候变化引发的种群统计学（population demography）变化中发挥关键作用，而激素响应的可塑性或为个体适应气候变化的核心机制。