Environmental variability often results in morphological plasticity, allowing organisms to acclimate and resist changing environmental conditions. Corals exhibit high morphological variability, possibly influenced by factors such as phenotypic plasticity and hybridization. Pseudodiploria Fukami, Budd & Knowlton, 2012 consists of two species, Pseudodiploria strigosa Dana, 1846 and Pseudodiploria clivosa Ellis & Solander, 1786, which are often differentiated by the colony morphology, number of septa per centimeter, width of valleys, and the presence/absence of coenosteum. In this study, we performed morphological and molecular analyses of 40 Pseudodiploria colonies (20 samples each reef) from the Gulf of Mexico in two reefs Gallega (coastal reef) and Galleguilla (at 2 km of coastline), at the Veracruz Reef System, using univariate analyses of 14 macro- and micro-characters supplemented by examination of mitochondrial (cytochrome b) and nuclear (β-tubulin) sequences. We confirmed the presence of the two Pseudodiploria species based on micro-morphological results. However, 32 colonies of Pseudodiploria presented high phenotypic plasticity at colony and calice levels (11 of the 14 evaluated characters), and molecular variation of β-tubulin gene was higher in the colonies that exhibited high morphological variability. Genetic distances of β-tubulin gene sequences also demonstrated that all colonies collected are most similar to P. clivosa (according to previous studies). Interestingly, we found that colonies collected from a coastal reef had higher variability in morphological characters at colony and calice levels (17 of 20 samples), which may be the evidence of the effect of environmental conditions on phenotypic plasticity of Pseudodiploria colonies.

环境的变化通常会导致形态可塑性，使生物能够适应环境并抵抗不断变化的环境条件。珊瑚表现出较高的形态变异性，可能受表型可塑性和杂交等因素的影响。Fukami的Pseudodiploria Fukami（2012年，Budd＆Knowlton）由两个物种组成：Pseudodiploria strigosa Dana（1846年）和Pseudodiploria clivosa Ellis＆Solander，1786年，它们通常通过菌落形态，每厘米的隔片数，谷宽和存在/差异来区分缺乏骨膜。在这项研究中，我们对40个假双足动物进行了形态学和分子分析在韦拉克鲁斯礁系统中，使用14个宏观和微观特征的单变量分析补充了墨西哥湾在两个海湾Gallega（沿海礁）和Galleguilla（海岸线2 km）处来自墨西哥湾的殖民地（每个礁石20个样本）线粒体（细胞色素b）和核（β-微管蛋白）序列的比较。基于微观形态学结果，我们确认了两种伪双足类物种的存在。然而，假双文凭的32个菌落在菌落和钙的水平上表现出高的表型可塑性（14个评估特征中的11个），并且β-微管蛋白基因的分子变异在表现出高形态变异性的菌落中更高。β的遗传距离-微管蛋白基因序列还证明，收集的所有菌落都与克氏假单胞菌最相似（根据先前的研究）。有趣的是，我们发现从沿海礁石收集的菌落在菌落和钙的水平上形态特征具有较高的变异性（20个样本中的17个），这可能是环境条件对假双倍体菌落表型可塑性影响的证据。