Coral Spawning Events for 2003

Alina M. Szmant szmanta at uncwil.edu
Fri Feb 21 16:14:02 EST 2003


Dear Carl (and others):

I feel like I should start an "Alina says... " column, and make it an annual
feature.   I am glad to hear that I was accurate last year!

For summer of 2003:  Alina says...

Full moon of Aug is on Aug 12 at 4:48 am.

Acropora spp will spawn  sometime between Aug 15 and 17 at ca. 10:00 to
10:30 am at  Florida latitudes and ca. 30-60 min earlier further south  (ca.
2 hr after sunset)

Montastraea spp and Diploria strigosa will spawn Aug 18 to 20 at ca. 11 pm
or so in Florida and ca. 30 to 60 min earlier further south. (ca. 3 hr after
sunset)

In exchange for sticking my neck out once again,  I hope those of you lucky
enough to be out there and observe spawning will email me back and let me
know if your observations were on other dates.  We refine our estimates each
year by gathering more observations.

Cheers, and don't step on the corals in the frenzy!

Alina Szmant

P.S.  I am not liable for any errors in my estimates, or any consequences of
your spending your good time and money to be out there those nights.
However, if it works out, you owe me a beer for having saved all the time
and money trying to figure it out for yourself.

At 03:01 PM 2/21/03 -0500, Beaver, Carl wrote:

> Would any members wish to speculate as to the dates of coral spawning in
> the western Atlantic for 2003?  Last years prediction (I think by Dr.
> Alina  Szmant) hit the nail on the head and consequently the Harte
> Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies was able to observe coral
> spawning on the Veracruz reefs for the first time.
>
>
>
> Carl Beaver Ph.D.
> Associate Research Scientist
> Florida Marine Research Institute
> 100 8th Ave. SE.  St Petersburg, FL  33701-5020
> Ph.  727-896-8626 ext 1110 / SC 523-1110
> Fx 727-893-1270
> e-mail Carl.beaver at fwc.state.fl.us
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~
> For directions on subscribing and unsubscribing to coral-list or the
> digests, please see http://www.coral.noaa.gov/lists/coral-list.html .

*******************************************************************
Dr. Alina M. Szmant
Coral Reef Research Group
Professor of Biology
Center for Marine Science
University of North Carolina at Wilmington
5600  Marvin K. Moss Lane
Wilmington  NC  28409-5928
tel:  (910)962-2362  fax:  (910)962-2410
email:  szmanta at uncwil.edu
http://www.uncwil.edu/people/szmanta/
******************************************************************




More information about the Coral-list-old mailing list