Pink Porites

Greta Smith Aeby greta at hawaii.edu
Mon Apr 8 18:58:20 EDT 1996


Ann, 
     What species of Porites wwere you looking at?  was the tissue pink  
upon collection or was it just the bleached skelteton that showwed the  
pink color?  Living Porites does turn bright pink in response to many  
irratations.  An inflammation response of some kind.  The Porites  
parasite I work on causes polyps to swell up and become bright pink but  
the discoloration does not extend into the skeleton.  If you notice  
irregular bumps(~5mm) on the coral skeleton that is also probably caused  
by parasitic infection.  If the tissue isn't pink tho it is not caused by  
parasitic infection. 
Greta 

On Fri, 5 Apr 1996 acohen at cliff.whoi.edu wrote: 

>           Dear All 
>           I am making various geochemical measurements on Porites 
>           colonies from Johnston Atoll, NC Pacific. On sectioning 
>           several colonies from one of my lagoonal sites, I noticed a 
>           bright pink line, the contours of which follow the growth 
>           bands. In all colonies, it is situated about 1.5 cm from the 
>           surface, below the green endolithic algae. I have never seen 
>           this before and it seems restricted to one particular 
>           site on Johnston Atoll.  Neither samples from the reef edge 
>           nor any other lagoonal localities nor any other genera I've 
>           sectioned show this. Could it be a red algae ? Does anybody 
>           have any suggestions ? 
>           much appreciated Anne 
>           (acohen at whoi.edu) 
>  
>  



More information about the Coral-list-old mailing list