Coral spawning in SE Asia (fwd)

[Evan Edinger]

In October, 1995, three of us observed a mass spawning of corals
in the
Karimunjawa Islands, Central Java.  We observed about 25 species
of corals
releasing eggs, sperm, or (usually) both, about 2 hours after
sunset a few
days after the full moon.  Our observations were published as an
abstract
in the 8ICRS (Panama, abstracts volume, p. 57), and as a data
table in
Thomascik, et al., 1997, The ecology of Indonesian Seas,
Periplus,
Singapore, table 7.3, p. 278.)

We made further observations on coral mass spawning in October,
1996, and
tried, without success, to capture eggs.

Our settling plates deployed in July and August 1995 had
acroporid and
pocilloporid spat, but we only observed mass spawning in October.

Wisnu Widjatmoko, of the Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science,
Diponegoro University, Semarang, Central Java, has made
histological
observations on coral spawning in the Java Sea, mainly about
Pocillopora
damicornis.

Evan Edinger

-- 
======================================================================
Dr. Evan Edinger
Depts. of Geography & Biology		tel. (709) 737-3233
Memorial University of Newfoundland	fax. (709) 737-3119
St. John's, Nfld.			e-mail: eedinger at cs.mun.ca
A1B 3X9	   CANADA

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 13:56:49 -0400
From: David Browne <dbrown15 at po-box.mcgill.ca>
To: James Rolfe Guest <scip9051 at nus.edu.sg>,
     James Rolfe Guest <scip9051 at nus.edu.sg>,
     "'jekstrom at coral.org'" <jekstrom at coral.org>,
     "'coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov'"
<coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>,
     eedinger at cs.mun.ca
Subject: Re: Coral spawning in SE Asia

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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