CORALOMICS · Tracing somatic evolution in corals with multi-omics: implications for longevity and adaptation

Corals are foundation species that build reef ecosystems, supporting vast marine biodiversity, yet the cellular mechanisms underlying their extreme longevity remain poorly understood. As colonial, modular organisms, corals are capable of indeterminate size and lifespan, raising fundamental questions about how genome integrity is maintained. In unitary animals, somatic mutations drive age-associated decline and malignancy, but in corals, modularity allows deleterious mutations to be compartmentalized, and beneficial variants to spread or even enter the germline. This challenges canonical germline–soma separation and positions corals as a powerful system to study somatic evolution.I hypothesize that intra-organismal genetic diversity in corals is shaped by persistent multipotent progenitors, spatial patterning of cell lineages, and turnover dynamics. DNA methylation, a robust biomarker of cellular age and fate, provides an additional layer of information.I will deploy a multi-pronged genomics strategy: (i) genome and methylome sequencing of spatially mapped samples to respectively infer mutational landscapes and epigenetic aging signatures, (ii) single-cell sequencing to quantify mutational load and transcriptional states, and (iii) integrative computational modeling. This integrative approach will establish how somatic evolution operates in modular animals, linking cellular mechanisms to colony longevity, potential for somatic inheritance, and adaptive capacity under environmental change.