[Coral-List] Diadema

[Les Kaufman]

Assembled masses:

Tom Capo at the RSMAS hatchery on Virginia Key is the guy, I believe  
the first guy, to develop replicable methods to rear Diadema  
antillarum.  I don't know when you got involved in this Martin,
but the effort I know of previous to Tom was by Bob Carpenter who  
managed to pull one individual through to juvenilehood at the old  
West Indies
Marine Lab on St. Croix many years ago.  At the time that was a  
tremendous accomplishment.

Tom embarked on Diadema husbandery in part to help Alina Szmant, Judy  
Lang and I, who chipped in- again many years ago but much later than  
Carpenter's enterprise-
to  encourage him.  Largely out of the goodness of his heart, Tom  
succeeded admirably and supplied experimental work by Alina and her  
lab, by my then grad
student Jamie Bechtel in my lab (Jamie is at Conservation  
International now), and who knows who all else.   We had visions of  
Diademaplums dancing in our heads, and
at one point hoped to repopulate the Caribbean.  The problem was,  
nobody seemed interested in paying for it.  They preferred to wait.   
And wait.  And...  I guess to a limited
extent they've been proved right, but waiting was no fun and the end  
results are still not very satisfactory.

So, with deference to all who've tried and failed
and those with the gumption to try again
Let's tip our hat to Tom, who nailed
the spiny beast, our hope and bane.

Les