[Coral-List] Parrotfish and coral

[Vassil Zlatarski]

*Douglas Fenner* douglasfennertassi at gmail.com
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*Thu Feb 23 17:18:29 EST 2017*

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Dear Doug,

I agree that logic is great weapon, however
"Logic like whiskey, loses its beneficial effect when taken in too
large quantities."
                                            - Lord Dunsany

Let us take example from coral larvae and species distribution. The
scleractinian coral
Porites colonensis created in 1990 is found only in Panama, Colombia
and Costa Rica.
Why only there and no migration?  The only guess might be effect of
the Gyre of Colombia.

Cheers,

Vassil

Vassil Zlatarski

D.Sc.(Biology), Ph.D.(Geology)




Gene,
    Thanks!  As for African dust being the cause of the Diadema dieoff
throughout the Caribbean and Florida in 1983, there is one detail of the
dieoff that I wonder if African dust can explain.  The dieoff began in
Panama and took an entire year to move around the Caribbean.  The sequence
it moved in matches the direction of current patterns.  At individual
locations, the dieoff took only about 10 days.  How can African dust
possibly account for that pattern?  Did African dust first hit Panama, and
then move around the Caribbean following water current patterns?  Why
wasn't the dieoff synchronous across the Caribbean, and why was the dieoff
complete at one location long before it even appeared at another?  Is there
documentation of the African dust reaching the Caribbean in that pattern?
Wouldn't the dust reach the eastern islands of the Caribbean and then move
west?  Isn't that the direction that the wind usually moves?  That's how
the dust gets from Africa to the Caribbean.  How could African dust get to
Panama first before reaching the windward islands in the eastern Caribbean
many months later??
   Cheers,  Doug