[Coral-List] Pigment extraction

Amy Apprill apprill at hawaii.edu
Wed Mar 7 14:25:28 EST 2007


Hi Monika,

If you take a look at the literature, you will find that there is no standard method for pigment extraction and sample handling for corals.  My co-authors and I have a paper in press in Coral Reefs that examined HPLC pigment concentration variability in Porites spp. corals.  For this study, we chose to grind the whole coral samples and extract in 100% acetone.  This method resulted in detection of some endolithic algae pigments.  I would recommend physically isolating the zooxanthellae prior to the pigment extraction if you would rather not have to correct for the endolithic algae pigment contribution.
Aloha,
Amy

Amy Apprill
University of Hawaii
Department of Oceanography 
& Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology  
(808) 236-7465    



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