coral reefs/plants

[Brice Quenoville]

Hi,

Talking about comparing terrestrial and marine life, marine life is =
evolving in three dimensions: latitude, longitude and also vertically. =
Plancton is very common in the  marine realm, as a way of life or as a way =
of dispersion and most organisms have at least part of their life as a =
planctonic entity. Now looking at terrestrial life only plants do really =
compare with marine organisms by using a planctonic way or at least an =
"aerial" way of dispersion. Such convergence of behaviour could have =
eventually created similarities in species diversity and occurence. I =
don't know enough about all this but  coral reefs could then  be compared =
to tropical vegetation because of similar latitude/longitude distribution =
and maybe such comparisons could also be done for marine life/plants at =
different latitude/longitude. Recent molecular studies tend to show a =
higher level of population structure and divergence in marine organisms =
than previously expected and plants can also be highly structured and =
diversed on relatively short distances or short heigth. Hybridization, =
polyploidy, variation in the number of chromosomes is very commonly =
recognized in plants and start to be more and more reported or suspected =
for marine life.=20

Anyway, it's lunch time and my food is not drifting in the air...

brice