[Coral-List] coral genome

[Robert Buddemeier]

Brief followup comments:

Thanks, Mike, for the summary.  Seems to me there may a fundamental 
mismatch between the desire for a growing, reproduce-in-captivity 
species and the implicit virtues of a long-lived widespread species. 
Given the need to get positive results on the first round, experimental 
feasibility is important -- so I would (reluctantly) step back from 
Porites and go with Julian's suggestion of Pocillopora, or a robust and 
well-characterized Acropora.  In general that criterion would tend to 
argue against massive growth forms in the first round.

However, I would like to reinforce Doug's point -- the massive Porites 
have the greatest colony longevity that has been widely and 
systematically demonstrated experimentally, and are widely used as 
environmental sensors.  That, plus distribution, plus both geological 
and ecological importance, should keep them pretty high on the list.

Somebody has to say it, so I'll be the bad guy -- the genus selected 
should have well-destributed and reasonably inportant species in both 
the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific.  It might be somewhat defensible to pick 
a genus that is in the Indo-Pacific and not  the Caribbean, but 
Montastrea just doesn't make it in terms of generalizability.

And, a possibly outdated comment on the message below -- I suspect 
lobata and lutea may be closer to sibling species than cousins:  when I 
was swimming around in the central Pacific and talking to people who ID 
corals, the consensus then was that the two grade into each other pretty 
indistinguishably.

Bob Buddemeier


shashank Keshavmurthy wrote:

>Dear listers,
>I have been following the discussion of the coral
>genome as to which coral has to be sequenced and
>why porites lobata may not be a better
>candidate......
>Well... as a student...and a coral biology
>researcher, I am happy for the sequencing idea,
>whatever may be the coral species.....
>
>As to why I would like to support this particular
>sequencing is I will be interested in continuing
>my studies on Pink-Line Syndrome that we have
>been observing in Kavaratti Atoll, Lakshadweep
>Islands, India, in Porites lutea every year
>(cousin of Porites lobata?)....
>Though a cynobacteria species associated with
>this syndrome has been isolated, still we believe
>that this is some kind of a immune response of
>this species.....as for as the syndrome is
>concerned, it is found only when the coral is in
>intense stress (high temperature, algal dominated
>areas)....once coral is out of stress, the pink
>line disappears.....
>We have found high amount of proteins in the
>effected corals.....
>We also believe the increased presence of HSPs
>during this phase......
>Hence, I am fully supporting this sequencing...
>
>I also beleive that it is the slow growing corals
>that we have to sequence first....as they have
>lot of secrets embedded in them!!!!......
>
>Cheers for those involved in this project!!!
>shashank
>
>=====
>"the role of infinitely small in nature is infinitely large"-Louis Pasteur                
>
>Keshavmurthy Shashank
>Kochi University, Faculty of Agriculture
>Lab. of AQUa. Environ. Sci. (LAQUES)
>Otsu 200, Monobe, Nankoku-shi
>783-8502, Kochi, Japan
>alt. id: shashank at cc.kochi-u.ac.jp
>phone: 81 090 8285 9012
>
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-- 
Robert W. Buddemeier, Ph.D.
Kansas Geological Survey
1930 Constant Avenue
Lawrence, KS 66047 USA
ph 1-785-864-2112, fax 1-785-864-5317
email  buddrw at ku.edu