[Coral-List] Age of clones?

[Szmant, Alina]

Hi Charles:
 
Your question revolves around the issue of whether you are specifying an age of an isolate or the age of the actual genotype.
 
With single celled algae the age of the clone is defined from when that single cell was isolated from it's neighbors and cleaned up.  The particular cell would be only a few days old at most at time of isolation, but the age of the genotype would be older.  Not sure if anyone has tried to age a genotype in such cells.  When did the first cell with that particular set of genetic characteristics come about from sexual reproduction?
 
When one "clones" a coral, you are taking a piece of an animal that could be tens to thousands of years old.  Every coral colony starts from a sexual planula, so the chronological age of the coral colony and every fragment derived from it would be the settlement date of that planula.  Unless you find a good way to age the donor colony, then all you can specify is how long that genotype has been in culture (you can call that the age of the clonal isolate, but recognize that is not the same thing as the age of that genotype).
 
Hope I didn't confuse you.
 
Alina
 
 
*******************************************************************
Dr. Alina M. Szmant
Coral Reef Research Group
UNCW-Center for Marine Science 
5600 Marvin K. Moss Ln
Wilmington NC 28409
Tel: (910)962-2362 & Fax:  (910)962-2410
Cell:  (910)200-3913
email:  szmanta at uncw.edu
Web Page:  http://people.uncw.edu/szmanta
******************************************************************

________________________________

From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov on behalf of Charles Delbeek
Sent: Wed 1/18/2006 9:49 PM
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: [Coral-List] Age of clones?



We are getting ready to send out coral fragments and excess Entacmaea
quadricolor anemones and I have a question. When one talks about the age of
animals, how do you treat clones? For example, all the anemones we have
originated via fission from a handful of animals collected from Palau in
1980. So, are these anemones 26 years old ... or do you take their age from
when they split? The same question applies to corals, we have specimens
that we have been fragmenting for years, some of which were collected in
1978 ... so are the fragments that old? Obviously for corals, new polyps
are being produced and old ones die off, so these would not be almost 30
years old ... but genetically they are the same as the original polyps ..
or are they? With anemones, it would be different I think since the
original tissue is still there.

Dazed and confused in Hawaii....

Aloha!


J. Charles Delbeek M.Sc.
Aquarium Biologist III
Waikiki Aquarium
2777 Kalakaua Ave.
Honolulu, HI, USA 96815
www.waquarium.org

808-923-9741
808-923-1771 FAX


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