[Coral-List] New paper on the dispersal (or lack of) of coral larvae across the East Pacific Barrier

Storlazzi, Curt cstorlazzi at usgs.gov
Thu Oct 6 12:49:03 EDT 2016


Colleagues,

I wonder the role of rafting (Jokiel, 1984*) as a mechanism that breaches
the Eastern Pacific Barrier with some frequency? It would seem to allow for
long-distance dispersal past the exponential decay in competency to settle
that generally limits such dispersal....especially with the increase in
anthropogenic buoyant material being released in the oceans.

* Paul L Jokiel (1984) Long distance dispersal of reef coral by rafting.
Coral Reefs v. 33, p. 113-116. oi:10.1007/BF00263761

For those who have not read it, a great paper by a wonderful person that
shows the importance of observation and thinking outside of the box.

Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2016 13:57:57 -0400
> From: Dennis Hubbard <dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] New paper on the dispersal (or lack of) of
>         coral larvae across the East Pacific Barrier
> To: Sally Wood <Sally.Wood at bristol.ac.uk>
> Cc: "coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov" <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Message-ID:
>         <CAFjCZNaFs0iAKphjOh_rQd9hiB8vtbYfvzdhYRvGZ2VzD2XsY
> g at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> A very interesting paper. My simplistic understanding of this previously
> was that the Isthmus of Panama created a barrier between Caribbean and
> Pacific regions and that larval flow was dominantly (perhaps solely) from
> east-to-west in the Trade Winds. This would seem to be consistent with
> these new findings. I was not aware that there was a lot of thought of
> westward flow into this area, although the eastward flow of larvae from the
> Tuamotus to Easter Island seems reasonably well documented.
>
> Might there be any value in looking at the development of the species of
> interest following the closure of the Isthmus of Panama to see whether
> those furthest east (which, if my recollection of the literature is
> correct, were the first to be impacted - Peter Glynn's papers) might have
> been the original sources of larvae to the west way back when? If so, might
> this infer that recent events are "unprecedented" over the past 2 million
> years?
> Dennis
>
> On Wed, Oct 5, 2016 at 5:55 AM, Sally Wood <Sally.Wood at bristol.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
> > A bit late but some of you might be interested in a new paper published
> in
> > Nature Communications in August, which revisits the theory that El Ni?o
> > events may promote long distance dispersal across the East Pacific
> Barrier:
> >
> > El Ni?o and coral larval dispersal across the Eastern Pacific marine
> > Barrier
> > <http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12571>, Wood, S., Baums, I.B.,
> > Paris,
> > C.B., Ridgwell, A., Kessler, W.S., He?ndy, E.J., Nature Communications
> > 7:12571 (2016).
> >
> > The study, which compares a modelling approach with genetic data across
> the
> > Pacific, is a collaboration between the University of Bristol's Coral
> Reef
> > research group, the Paris laboratory at RSMAS and the Baums laboratory at
> > Penn State, with input from oceanographer Billy Kessler at NOAA's Pacific
> > Marine Environmental Laboratory and climatologist Andy Ridgwell at the
> > University of California at Riverside.
> >
> > The press release (printed below) can be viewed here
> > <http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2016/august/reef-castaways.html>, and the
> full
> > paper obtained here <http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12571>. An
> > animation of example modelled dispersal paths by month of release can be
> > viewed here <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMzuPcBTq5c>.
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Dennis Hubbard
> Chair, Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
> (440) 775-8346
>
> * "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*
>  Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
Curt Storlazzi, Ph.D.
U.S. Geological Survey
Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
2885 Mission Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
(831) 460-7521 phone
(831) 427-4748 fax

Staff web page:
https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/curt-d-storlazzi
Pacific Coral Reefs:
*http://coralreefs.wr.usgs.gov/ <http://coralreefs.wr.usgs.gov/>*
Sea-level Rise and Pacific Atolls:
*http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/climate-change/atolls/
<http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/climate-change/atolls/>*



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