[CDHC] clonal coral line update

Eric Borneman eborneman at uh.edu
Sat Feb 21 19:02:06 EST 2004


Hi list:

This a brief note to inform the list of progress on the establishment 
of coral clonal lines through culture efforts. As some of you may know, 
I have been working intensively with Reef Savers, a large coral 
propagation facility here in Houston.

The main purpose of this note is to acquire any feedback from 
interested parties as to species, sizes, and numbers of corals that 
might be required for your research so that we can tailor the 
propagation efforts to meet this initial demand.

Pacific species are easily available for us, and we are concentrating 
on a few species with a large literature base.  If anyone has 
particular requests or needs, please send me an email and we would be 
happy to try and get them into culture.

Furthermore, this is a general request to the list to consider shipping 
any live specimens used in your research to us after the course of your 
investigation, provided, of course, that the corals have not been 
subjected to any agents that may compromise the health of existing 
stock. This would be a good way to increase the diversity at the 
facility, prevent wastage of corals already collected, and would make 
the same genotype line available to the party for later work if any 
aspect of the research needed to be repeated or expanded.

Caribbean genera and species currently present:

I have acquired broodstock from the Flower Gardens, Belize, and the 
Keys. The most extensive collections are from the Truman Annex site at 
Key West, where, in November, we brought back 165 pounds of coral. This 
week, we will be driving a truck back to the site to bring back a great 
deal more.

Mycetophyllia sp.
Scolymia sp.
Porites porites
Porites divaricata
Porites astreoides
Montastraea franksi
Montastraea faveolata
Montastraea annularis
Montastraea cavernosa
Stephanocoenia michelinii
Siderastrea radians
Siderastrea siderea
Manacina areolata
Madracis decactis
Diploria strigosa
Diploria labyrinthiformis
Oculina diffusa
Favia fragum
Agaricia agaracites
Agaricia tenuifolia
Isophyllia sinuosa

Muriceopsis flavida
Plexaura sp.

At the end of next week, I will be able to include at least:

Acropora cervicornis
Colpophyllia natans
Meandrina meandrites

Pacific species:

Acropora millepora
Pocillopora damicornis
Stylophora pistillata
Acropora nana
Acropora formosa

We have many other species of Pacific corals that can become CDHC 
culture material if the need or request arises.

We have just finished a first round of fragmentation of several of the 
Caribbean species.

Corals are separated by location, species, and genotype.

We expect to be able to offer some of these corals to the research 
community within a year in limited amounts, but full availability of 
these species must wait until production is ramped up. For some, 
broodstock levels are currently too low to support large scale 
propagation, and this is especially true of large fleshy species (e.g 
Scolymia, Mycetophyllia) or massive slow growing species (although our 
growth rates thus far have been very high and the growth of M cavernosa 
and Diploria has surprised us).

Thus far, mortality of collected specimens is less than 0.05%, having 
lost only a single colony of Favia fragum to bleaching without recovery 
upon introduction to strong metal halide lamps.

I look forward to hearing feedback and comments

Best,

Eric Borneman

Department of Biology
University of Houston
Science and Research Bldg II
4800 Calhoun
Houston TX, 77204

ph 713-743-2667
eborneman at uh.edu
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