[Coral-List] Palythoa in Japan

James Davis REIMER jreimer at sci.u-ryukyu.ac.jp
Wed Mar 19 12:40:24 EDT 2008


Hi All,

Just to add a few thoughts on Palythoa and bleaching. I already sent this email to a few people, but not to the coral list. 
Apologies to those who have already read this.

Here in Japan (Okinawa) we often see large "carpets" of P. tuberculosa on the reef edge, which may be a synonym of P. caesia. 
There are often small colonies inside reef lagoons and even under dead coral rubble. There are a few references out there from 
the 70s and 80s (I am travelling now and do not have my references with me - they may be Karlson's papers) that seem to show 
that Palythoa does not rely on its zooxanthellae as much as Zoanthus. This plus the fact that here in Okinawa we can 
occasionally find large colonies in small caves, under rocks, and other poorly-lit microenvironments, and that P. tuberculosa 
more often opens its polyps at night, and I think it is likely that Palythoa is obtaining energy from the water column (plankton 
etc) with zx "backup". In Japan P. tuberculosa seems to only have C1 Symbiodinium (our paper in Coral Reefs 2006), but P. 
caesia in the Indo-Pacific has C and D (Burnett 2002), and other data I have (unpublished) shows C1 and D in areas around 
Indonesia. It may be that distribution in some areas could be limited by plankton levels of some kind in the water column.

P. tuberculosa bleaches early and often (I have seen cases in southern Japan every year from 2001) despite many years not 
being particularly "hot" - but rarely dies from bleaching - another indication it is not very reliant on ZX.

Another limiting factor for Palythoa seems to be winter temperatures (rather obvious for zooxanthellate Hexacorallia) - as in 
Ryland et al (2001 perhaps - Semper's larvae paper) it was strongly suggested that Palythoa larvae do not appear in waters 
below 20C, while Zoanthus larvae can be found in waters down to 18C. I am not familiar with Florida and water temperatures at 
all, but shallower waters here in Japan (particularly in the islands north of Okinawa and south of Kyushu) have Palythoa in 
deeper waters with more stable temperatures, but is rare in shallower waters inside the reef where waters are colder. Similarly, 
Palythoa is not found in Kagoshima Bay (waters down to 16C in winter) but Zoanthus sp. are. Again, I only have observations 
and temperature data from a few areas, but winter minimum temperature may be a factor is some of the unusual distributions 
seen. I would bet (but I am not a rich guy) it is a combination of water column food and temperature.

Anyways, sorry for the posting filled with "very" "often" and "rarely" - but I really haven't crunched enough numbers to say 
more, and my students are working on some of these things now - maybe I can post more in a year or so. Still, I have rough 
data from 1000+ dives and snorkels in the area, so I figured someone out there may find my rough ideas of interest.

kampai from Japan,

James Davis Reimer, Ph.D.
Associate Professor - University of the Ryukyus
Invited Researcher - Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::NEW WORK ADDRESS (from April 1, 2007):
Department of Chemistry, Biology and Marine Science
Faculty of Science
University of the Ryukyus
1 Senbaru, Nishihara
Okinawa 903-0213
JAPAN
Tel: ++81-98-895-8542
Fax: ++81-98-895-8576
e-mail: jreimer at sci.u-ryukyu.ac.jp
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Today's Topics:

1. Palythoa discussion (dustin kemp)
2. Re: Palythoa discussion (Dawn Phillip)
3. Position Opening: Associate Scientist, Ocean Acidification
(Jim Hendee)


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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:23:19 +0000
From: dustin kemp <dustykemp2 at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Coral-List] Palythoa discussion
To: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Message-ID: <BLU115-W27A4671DAC071B7B02300A81050 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"




Hi
Dawn, 




Interesting observation concerning
differences in Palythoa bleaching from inshore vs. offshore colonies. 
This acclimatization process has been shown with Palythoa caribaeorum (and
their zooxanthellae types C1 & D1a) on a geographic scale in S. Florida (Kemp, DW, et al.
Journal Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. 2006). We found
that P. caribaeorum from regions with larger annual temperature ranges did not
bleach as much as P. caribaeorum with smaller annual temperature ranges. 
I know this has also been seen in corals as well (Cook et al. Coral Reefs,
1990; among others).




An interesting observation that I could
never figure out during this project is why along the east coast of Florida (up
to West Palm Beach) you can find P. caribaeorum right off the beach but in the
FL Keys to find P. caribaeorum you must go offshore past Hawks channel (appx
> 2-3 miles out). Even on patch reefs inside of Hawks channel I was
unable to find P. caribaeorum.



Cheers, Dusty


_________________________________________________________________
Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser!
http://biggestloser.msn.com/

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:15:45 -0400
From: "Dawn Phillip" <Dawn.Phillip at sta.uwi.edu>
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Palythoa discussion
To: "dustin kemp" <dustykemp2 at hotmail.com>
Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Message-ID:
<AC595DEA0338F5408CAF4311BEF0F7015B3F6C at sauwiexch01.sauwi.uwi.tt>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hi Dusty

Yes, I was fascinated by the fact that Palythoa had a greater tendency
to bleach in the part of the reef that it dominated. We haven't looked
at the reef slope as yet as we are waiting for the brief period of clear
water (about 2 weeks in August/September). The visibility is horrible
(<<1 m) and it is very rough getting out there

Thanks everybody for the refs. I'll have a read and consolidate my
thoughts

Dawn

-----Original Message-----
From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
[mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of dustin kemp
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2008 4:23 PM
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: [Coral-List] Palythoa discussion




Hi
Dawn, 




Interesting observation concerning
differences in Palythoa bleaching from inshore vs. offshore colonies. 
This acclimatization process has been shown with Palythoa caribaeorum
(and
their zooxanthellae types C1 & D1a) on a geographic scale in S. Florida
(Kemp, DW, et al.
Journal Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. 2006). We found
that P. caribaeorum from regions with larger annual temperature ranges
did not
bleach as much as P. caribaeorum with smaller annual temperature ranges.

I know this has also been seen in corals as well (Cook et al. Coral
Reefs,
1990; among others).




An interesting observation that I could
never figure out during this project is why along the east coast of
Florida (up
to West Palm Beach) you can find P. caribaeorum right off the beach but
in the
FL Keys to find P. caribaeorum you must go offshore past Hawks channel
(appx
> 2-3 miles out). Even on patch reefs inside of Hawks channel I was
unable to find P. caribaeorum.



Cheers, Dusty


_________________________________________________________________
Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser!
http://biggestloser.msn.com/
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