[Coral-List] coral bleaching: response to Goreau

[shashank Keshavmurthy]

Dear Listers
It is interesting to see that finally the debate
on the coral energy aquisition has surfaced...

most of the resarch papers till now say that 
there is major contribution of Carbon form
zooxanthellae to corals....but, when in need the
corals can adapt to the carbon aquisition
heterotrophically....???????

We all need to get lots of information from
aquarists around the world....

If you will see the book written by "Julian
Spring" on the aquarium corals...it gives the
mode of nutrition as autotrophy and heterotrophy
to most of the corals described in his book....

we as researchers may just dont know what really
is happening out there....

here i agree totally with Tom....we still need to
get lots work done so as to understand the true
feeding habits of corals...

Recent paper by "Palardy et al, MEPS (2005) 300:
79-89, Effects of upwelling, depth, morphology
and polyp size on feeding in three species of
Panamanian corals"...looks at what corals are
eating...

Collaboration with aquarists is needed to really
understand about the energy aquisition in corals
in more detail...

more and more people are looking at zooxanthellae
since it is believed to be "the source of Carbon"
and "the factor for/of coral bleaching
response"...

question is how much is the symbiotic dependency?
there are many studies showing that the corals
can survive without the presence of
zooxanthellae...it may not be for long time and
may not be see in natural enviroment....but we do
see many sea anemones in coral reefs, bleached
and still surviving....

i think it is like, do corals want to feed on
zooplankton when they loose zooxanthellae?
does it take some time to switch between the
modes of nutrition acquisition?  
combination of stress factors may be disturbing
the switching between the modes

for instance, when kept in aquarium tank in
dark..it is only one stress and corals can
survive with the zooplankton being fed...that
means  they are able to switch between the
modes..?

hmm...its pretty complex out there..and coral
physiology is more and more challenging...this is
my view...

Regards
shashank   




"the role of infinitely small in nature is infinitely large"-Louis Pasteur                

Keshavmurthy Shashank
phD candidate
Kochi University, Graduate School of Kuroshio Science
Laboratory of Environmental Conservation
Otsu 200, Monobe, Nankoku-shi
783-8502, Kochi, Japan
alt. id: shashank at cc.kochi-u.ac.jp
phone: 81 080 3925 3889

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