[Coral-List] Live On the Web: Coral Spawning

Jim Hendee Jim.Hendee at noaa.gov
Sun Aug 10 20:02:56 EDT 2003


Greetings, Coral-Listers,
  
    As you can see from Dr. Alina Szmant's message below ("Alina Says"),  dated
February 21, 2003, spawning is anticipated for several species throughout
Florida and the Caribbean during selected days in August.  As  you may recall,
part of our Coral Reef Watch program at NOAA is the installation of
Web-accessible Coral Cameras at selected stations where viewing specific events
that can be witnessed are of value and interest to researchers and the lay
public, and where funding resources permit.  Thus, we would like to announce
that our colleague Dave Ward of the Caribbean Marine Research Center and
NOAA/AOML has positioned the St. Croix, USVI Coral Camera to point at a large
colony of /Montastraea faveolata/ in about 40' of water.  The camera has a
light on it that comes on for 10 minutes every thirty minutes beginning at
7:02pm (EST) and ending at 5:32am (last lighting).  Hopefully, we will be able
to witness the coral colony spawning some time between Aug 18-20, some time
between 9pm and 2am, with a high probability of Aug 19 as the likely date.
Hopefully, the coral will cooperate (it may be that that particular
colony does not spawn).  The URL for the Web Coral Camera is,

    http://www.coral.noaa.gov/

and click on "Live Web Cams" in the left-side list of links, then on
"UnderwaterCam."  You must have Windows Media installed on your computer to
access the images.  You can also open up the data stream directly in Windows
Media (and thus increase the size of the viewing window) using this URL:  

    mms://192.111.123.141/uw-stx 

The camera is broadcasting at night all this week, and of course also during
all daylight hours.

    This effort is also part of our Coral Literature, Education and Outreach
(CLEO) program (http://www.coral.noaa.gov/cleo, currently under development),
under which we will also soon be providing educational modules concerning
coral bleaching and spawning.  Please note that we will also be recording a 
higher quality video stream (as opposed to that over the Internet) of the 
event which  will be downloadable (if they spawn) via the CLEO Web link at 
some time after the spawning.

    Cheers,
    Jim Hendee and the CREWS/Camera Team
    (Clarke Jeffris, Louis Florit, Mike Shoemaker,
	Jules Craynock, Jeff Judas, Monika Gurnee, 
	Derek Manzello, Dave Ward and Skeet Perry)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: Coral Spawning Events for 2003
Date: 	Fri, 21 Feb 2003 16:14:02 -0500
From: 	Alina M. Szmant <szmanta at uncwil.edu>
To: 	Beaver, Carl <Carl.Beaver at fwc.state.fl.us>, 
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov

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/
******************************************************************



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