[Coral-List] List of Caribbean corals (scleractinians)

[Douglas Fenner]

Cynthia,
   An additional resource is Coralpedia at  http://coralpedia.bio.warwick
..ac.uk One species it misses is *Leptoseris cailetti*.  Also it is missing
a few *Oculina* that you'll find in the Humann & Roach book and one or more
*w*.  Not included likely for lack of a photo.  Also, are you interested in
azooxanthellate scleractinia?  If you are, you'll need to choose a depth
that you want to limit the list to, or realize that some azooxanthellate
scleractinia go down to great depths since they don't need light (many
extend deeper than SCUBA depths and many are found only in deeper water).
Some are in shallow water (safe SCUBA depths), Humann & Roach have some but
not all shallow species I believe, and Coralpedia has three (there are at
least 28 azooxanthellate species that can be found in 30 m depth or less in
the Caribbean, listed in Fenner, 1999, but they are typically small, in
dark places, and hard to find).  A related question, do you want to include
stony corals that are not scleractinia?  If not, then you don't want to
include Millepora or Stylaster.  But if you want all reef building corals,
then you certainly want Millepora, it is an important reef builder.
Azooxanthellate corals (both scleractinia and Stylaster) are very minor
contributors to reef building, minor to the point that they are generally
not considered reef builders.  But how much a species contributes is a
graded thing, depending on size and abundance, and some small, rare,
zooxanthellate corals don't contribute much more than azooxanthellate
corals, and Tubastraea can be a fairly moderate contributor where it is
abundant even though it is azooxanthellate.
     Also, be aware that coral family names and assignments particularly,
but also genera names, are currently in a bit of a state of flux.  For more
about that, see the "about" and "notes" pages in Coralpedia, which includes
references for more study in depth.
     You can search for corals by either name or shape, and the website
includes sponges and soft corals, etc.
     I haven't spotted how to get Corals of the World (online,
www.coralsoftheworld.org) to generate a species list for a given area, but
there may be a way to do it.  If they don't have that feature yet, they
will likely have it in the future, building the website is a huge task.
They include only zooxanthellae scleractinia.  If it can be done, you'll
have to decide which areas you want to include (all of the Caribbean?  Part
of it?  Florida?  Gulf of Mexico? US SE coast north of Florida? all of
these?)  They also have more extensive discussion of name problems and
coral taxonomy in their "taxonomy" section.
     Cheers,  Doug

Fenner, D.  1999.  New Observations on the Stony Coral Species
(Scleractinia, Milliporidae, Stylaseridae) of Belize (Central America) and
Cozumel (Mexico). Bulletin of Marine Science 64: 143-154.


On Thu, Mar 9, 2017 at 5:46 AM, Cynthia Ross <scubatoads at sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> I am currently working on my masters at UTA.  For the project that I am
> working on I need a comprehensive list of scleractinian corals that are
> found in the Caribbean.  I have NOAA’s list of Caribbean coral species as
> well as the Reef Coral ID book by Humann and DeLoach, and have been looking
> at other sources.   Any suggestions for a complete and up to date list
> would be appreciated.
>
> Cheers,
> Cynthia Ross
> MS Student, University of Texas Arlington, Mydlarz Lab
> cynthia.ross2 at mavs.uta.edu
>
>
>
> --
Douglas Fenner
Contractor for NOAA NMFS, and consultant
"have regulator, will travel"
PO Box 7390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA

phone 1 684 622-7084

Join the International Society for Reef Studies.  Membership includes a
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