Coral spawning in SE Asia

[David Browne]

Hello,

I observed coral spawning in the Karimunjawa Islands off Semarang, 
Indonesia 4 days after the full moon in October, 1997.  Evan Edinger has 
made further observations of coral spawning in this area.

Evan Edinger:  eedinger at cs.mun.ca

David Browne
PhD Candidate
Department of Biology
McGill University



Dear Julie and coral-list,
I can help with the one part of your second question regarding coral
spawning in South East Asia/Indonesia. Actually very little is known about
the reproductive cycles of SE Asian corals. As far as I know, the only
observation of a coral mass spawning in SE Asia is from the Philippines in
May 1981 during the 4th International Coral Reef Symposium. The only
published accounts come from the Philippines and from Singapore. Bermas et
al (1992) report that a number of hard and soft corals in the Philippines
spawn between April and May. In Singapore Chou and Quek (1992) reported that
Pocillopora damicornis releases planulae around the new moon each month.
Also in Singapore, I have done histological examination of Diploastrea
heliopora and Goniopora spp. I saw that D. heliopora contained very mature
gametes in late March 2000 suggesting a late march or April spawning.
Conversely, Goniopora spp. contained very mature gametes in October and
November 1999 and 2000 suggesting an October or November spawning for that
species.

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