Coral starving and survival

Dave Barnes d.barnes at aims.gov.au
Sun Mar 10 22:17:26 EST 2002


Dear All,

I suggest that you compare the depth to which skeleton is occupied by tissue
in the two groups of corals.  There is good evidence that this depth is
decreased in starving and in stressed corals.  There is also evidence that
this depth (tissue thickness) is reduced following bleaching.

Cheers - Dave Barnes.

Dr Dave Barnes
Australian Institute of Marine Science
PMB 3, Mail Centre
Townsville  Qld  4810

Work tel:  61-(0)7-4753 4236
Work fax: 61-(0)7-4772 5852
Home tel: 61-(0)7-4778 8147

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Wiseman" <James.Wiseman at intecengineering.com>
To: <alcolado at ama.cu>; <coral-list at aoml.noaa.gov>
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2002 5:20 AM
Subject: RE: Coral starving and survival

> An interesting post.
>
> There certainly can be many factors which differentiate these two "coral
> sets."  I think it would be premature to settle on the conclusion that
> the
> corals that were living in the "greenish and more turbid" survived
> because
> they were well fed.
>
> Couldn't we just as easily conclude that these corals survived BECAUSE
> they
> were living in more turbid water.  The turbid water corals were exposed
> to
> much lower light levels - a known factor in coral bleaching.
>
> Sincerely
> James Wiseman
> Houston TX
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: alcolado at ama.cu [mailto:alcolado at ama.cu]
> Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 12:16 PM
> To: coral-list at aoml.noaa.gov
> Cc: debimack at auracom.com
> Subject: Coral starving and survival
>
>
>
> Dear coral-lister,
> I decided to add a little more firewood to discussion on Debbie
> McKenzie's interesting coral starving-survival hypohesis.
> During an AGRRA assessment along the south and east of  the
> Gulf of Batabano (SW Cuba; march 2001) the Cuban-International
> team observed a  gradient of improving condition in Acropora
> palmata (from a situation where practically all colonies were dead
> along the south) in the extent we approximate to the huge Zapata
> swamp (which is supposed to enhance plankton productivity and
> where water becomes greenish and more turbid). The two Acropora
>  palmata  crests closest to Zapata swamp looked practically
> healthy.
> Another Cuban-International AGRRA assessment in the
> Archipelago Jardines de la Reina (SE Cuba) showed that Acropora
> palmata in the windward crests of Cayo Caballones, exposed to
> the oligotrophic ocean were virtually dead, while a small Acropora
> palmata crest located leeward of the same key and exposed to the
>  most biological productive shelf of Cuba (varying from mesotrophic
> to eutrophic along a cross gradient towards mainland) was alive
> and really beautiful (mixed with dense thickets of live Acropora
> prolifera).
> Probably well fed Acropora palmata crests survived the massive
> mortality event(s) (cause unknown: coral bleaching, white band,
> patchy necrosis?) that killed the crests exposed to less nutrified
> and less productive oceanic waters.
> If so, McKenzie's hypothesis, far from be discarded prematurely,
> has to be tested because it could explain differences in the fate of
> some coral reefs at small scale, and also explain some
> mismatches at larger scale when correlating coral bleaching with
> sea surface temperature.
> I fully agree that higher sea surface temperatures are the primary
> cause of coral bleaching, but the fate of corals ususally is
> conditioned by other complementary factors (cloudiness, sea
> surface roughness, water transparency, etc.), very probably
> included the degree of coral starvation.
> Cheers,
> Pedro M. Alcolado
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