[Coral-List] OBJECTIVE SCIENCE

Rudy Bonn rudy_bonn at yahoo.com
Mon Feb 13 21:57:50 EST 2012





Esther, it was a figure of speech, myself having spent hundreds of hours glued to a microscope, I know of their importance.  Im simply stating that we need to look at all the threats facing coral reef ecosystems, and discover the ones that we can manage now, like over fishing, if we can take one or two of these threats away, corals maybe able to become more sustainable, longer survivorship, better reproductive capabilities, etc., in the keys, elkhorn colonies and staghorn colonies, those that are still around, are so far apart spatially speaking, that sexual reproduction and thus increased genetic variability is almost impossible to accomplish, so we are at the point where restoration is being used to transplant healthy corals onto the reef tract, fragments taken from many different parental colonies, to do the  best we can in terms of enhancing genetic variability,  and yes, I have identified many benthic invertebrates and  have aged fishes using
 microscopy techniques with otoliths,  and many times, I must admit, even though I know the importance of using microscopy  techniques, I have walked away after eight hours on one, cussing the damn thing!  Shucks, Im only human!   Rudy   

Rudy S Bonn
Director of Marine Projects
Reef Relief
631 Greene Street
Key West, FL 33040
305-294-3100


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