Stomatopod kill
Justin McDonald
justin.mcdonald at ntu.edu.au
Wed Nov 14 21:57:29 EST 2001
Greetings all
I have been following the discussion of mass mortality in stomatopods with
some interest. I was wondering if anybody had any imagery of these events
that they wouldn't mind being used for undergraduate lectures. Images would
of course be referenced appropriately.
Many thanks
cheerio
Justin
<(((((< <(((((< <(((((< <(((((< <(((((< <(((((< <(((((<
<(((((< <(((((<
Justin McDonald (President - Australian Marine Sciences Association NT
Branch )
School of Biological, Environmental & Chemical Sciences
Northern Territory University
Darwin, NT. Australia 0909
Telephone: +61 (0)8 8946 6863
Facsimile: +61 (0)8 8946 6847
Email:j_mcdonald at site.ntu.edu.au
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roy Caldwell [SMTP:4roy at socrates.berkeley.edu]
> Sent: Saturday, 3 November 2001 02:42
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Subject: Stomatopod kill
>
> With respect to the recent report of mass mortality of stomatopods in
> the Seychelles, I can offer the following guesses.
>
> First, I suspect that from the numbers, size and color information,
> this is (these are) gonodactylids, probably Gonodactylus smithii, G.
> viridis or G. chiragra or some combination of green, low intertidal
> stomatopods. I have seen three mass mortalities of stomatopods
> during my field work, one in Panama, one in Australia, and one in
> Guam. There was also the report of a fresh water event in Kaneohe
> Bay by Kinzie. In all three cases that I witnessed, there was an
> extreme low tide during the day (we are just past a full moon)
> coupled with heavy rain and then bright, hot sun. This can cause a
> lens of very hot, oxygen poor, fresh water to develop on the exposed
> reef. Stomatopods are tough, but when it gets hot, they often will
> leave their cavities and try to dig in under rocks, coral heads, etc.
> to reach cooler, more saline conditions. If the tide is still out
> and there is enough hot fresh water on an exposed reef, this is
> fatal. One slight variation on this theme that I one saw on a
> mudflat in Thailand was rain and bright sun at low tide. As the tide
> came in, the hot, fresh water being pushed ahead was very hot - 44 C.
> Many of the burrowing squillids and lysiosquillids vacated their
> burrows when the hot water hit and most perished.
>
> It is hard to tell from this report how wide spread the phenomenon
> was. If it occurred over a wide area, then my scenario is unlikely.
> If it were on just a few adjacent islands, it is more likely. I
> suppose a red tide or other biological explanation is possible,
> although I haven't ever heard of this effecting stomatopods on a
> massive scale.
>
> I would be happy to help identify the species, etc. if more
> information can be provided. Too bad there isn't an emergency fund
> to fly stomatopod biologists to such hotspots.
>
> Roy
> --
> ***************************************
> Roy L. Caldwell
> Professor of Integrative Biology
> Department of Integrative Biology
> University of California at Berkeley
> Berkeley, CA 94720-3140
> USA
>
> Phone (office): (510) 642-1391
> Phone (lab): (510) 643-5448
> Fax: (510) 643-6264
> Email: 4roy at socrates.berkeley.edu
> http://ib.berkeley.edu/faculty/Caldwell,RL.html
> ***************************************
> --============_-1207401387==_ma============
> Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
>
> <!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
> <html><head><style type="text/css"><!--
> blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { padding-top: 0 ; padding-bottom: 0 }
> --></style><title>Stomatopod kill</title></head><body>
> <div>With respect to the recent report of mass mortality of
> stomatopods in the <font size="-1"> Seychelles</font>, I can
> offer the following guesses.</div>
> <div><br></div>
> <div>First, I suspect that from the numbers, size and color
> information, this is (these are) gonodactylids, probably Gonodactylus
> smithii, G. viridis or G. chiragra or some combination of green, low
> intertidal stomatopods. I have seen three mass mortalities
> of stomatopods during my field work, one in Panama, one in Australia,
> and one in Guam. There was also the report of a fresh water
> event in Kaneohe Bay by Kinzie. In all three cases that I
> witnessed, there was an extreme low tide during the day (we are just
> past a full moon) coupled with heavy rain and then bright, hot sun.
> This can cause a lens of very hot, oxygen poor, fresh water to develop
> on the exposed reef. Stomatopods are tough, but when it
> gets hot, they often will leave their cavities and try to dig in under
> rocks, coral heads, etc. to reach cooler, more saline
> conditions. If the tide is still out and there is enough
> hot fresh water on an exposed reef, this is fatal. One slight
> variation on this theme that I one saw on a mudflat in Thailand was
> rain and bright sun at low tide. As the tide came in, the hot,
> fresh water being pushed ahead was very hot - 44 C. Many of the
> burrowing squillids and lysiosquillids vacated their burrows when the
> hot water hit and most perished.</div>
> <div><br></div>
> <div>It is hard to tell from this report how wide spread the
> phenomenon was. If it occurred over a wide area, then my
> scenario is unlikely. If it were on just a few adjacent islands,
> it is more likely. I suppose a red tide or other biological
> explanation is possible, although I haven't ever heard of this
> effecting stomatopods on a massive scale.</div>
> <div><br></div>
> <div>I would be happy to help identify the species, etc. if more
> information can be provided. Too bad there isn't an emergency
> fund to fly stomatopod biologists to such hotspots.</div>
> <div><br></div>
> <div>Roy</div>
> <x-sigsep><pre>--
> </pre></x-sigsep>
> <div>***************************************<br>
> Roy L. Caldwell<br>
> Professor of Integrative Biology<br>
> Department of Integrative Biology<br>
> University of California at Berkeley<br>
> Berkeley, CA 94720-3140<br>
> USA<br>
> <br>
> Phone (office): (510) 642-1391<br>
> Phone (lab): (510) 643-5448<br>
> Fax: (510) 643-6264<br>
> Email: 4roy at socrates.berkeley.edu<br>
> http://ib.berkeley.edu/faculty/Caldwell,RL.html<br>
> ***************************************</div>
> </body>
> </html>
> --============_-1207401387==_ma============--
>
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