[Coral-List] FW: coral bleaching: response to Goreau

Julian Sprung julian at twolittlefishies.com
Wed May 31 11:45:53 EDT 2006


Sometimes you have to hit Reply All to post to the list-- I had sent the first comment directly to Shashank, not to the list. Sorry for any confusion- see below, which I thought I had sent before the followup-

Julian

> ----------
> From: 	Julian Sprung
> Sent: 	Wednesday, May 31, 2006 9:44 AM
> To: 	'shashank Keshavmurthy'
> Subject: 	RE: [Coral-List] coral bleaching: response to Goreau
> 
> I think that this subject highlights another important point, which I have commented on in the past on this list-  the assumption made by newspaper reporters and possibly by some reef researchers who speak to them that the reason corals die after a bleaching event has to do with the nutrition provided by the zoox's-- in other words that bleached corals starve to death. The recent literature on bleaching points to the many real reasons why corals die in bleaching events, but they are more complex to describe in a brief newspaper article than the simple and erroneous notion of starvation, so the starvation hypothesis gets repeated. Lately I've seen it phrased this way: "If the corals don't eventually regain their zooxanthellae they die." This is saying starvation without saying it. 
> 
> Discussion of oxygen free radicals, dark phase reactions of photosynthesis, and temperature dependent pathogens in a few inches of print gets tricky.
> 
> Julian
> 
> 
> 
> ----------
> From: 	coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov on behalf of shashank Keshavmurthy
> Sent: 	Wednesday, May 31, 2006 12:13 AM
> To: 	Andréa" Grottoli; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov; goreau at bestweb.net
> Subject: 	Re: [Coral-List] coral bleaching: response to Goreau
> 
> Dear Listers
> It is interesting to see that finally the debate
> on the coral energy aquisition has surfaced...
> 
> most of the resarch papers till now say that 
> there is major contribution of Carbon form
> zooxanthellae to corals....but, when in need the
> corals can adapt to the carbon aquisition
> heterotrophically....???????
> 
> We all need to get lots of information from
> aquarists around the world....
> 
> If you will see the book written by "Julian
> Spring" on the aquarium corals...it gives the
> mode of nutrition as autotrophy and heterotrophy
> to most of the corals described in his book....
> 
> we as researchers may just dont know what really
> is happening out there....
> 
> here i agree totally with Tom....we still need to
> get lots work done so as to understand the true
> feeding habits of corals...
> 
> Recent paper by "Palardy et al, MEPS (2005) 300:
> 79-89, Effects of upwelling, depth, morphology
> and polyp size on feeding in three species of
> Panamanian corals"...looks at what corals are
> eating...
> 
> Collaboration with aquarists is needed to really
> understand about the energy aquisition in corals
> in more detail...
> 
> more and more people are looking at zooxanthellae
> since it is believed to be "the source of Carbon"
> and "the factor for/of coral bleaching
> response"...
> 
> question is how much is the symbiotic dependency?
> there are many studies showing that the corals
> can survive without the presence of
> zooxanthellae...it may not be for long time and
> may not be see in natural enviroment....but we do
> see many sea anemones in coral reefs, bleached
> and still surviving....
> 
> i think it is like, do corals want to feed on
> zooplankton when they loose zooxanthellae?
> does it take some time to switch between the
> modes of nutrition acquisition?  
> combination of stress factors may be disturbing
> the switching between the modes
> 
> for instance, when kept in aquarium tank in
> dark..it is only one stress and corals can
> survive with the zooplankton being fed...that
> means  they are able to switch between the
> modes..?
> 
> hmm...its pretty complex out there..and coral
> physiology is more and more challenging...this is
> my view...
> 
> Regards
> shashank   
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "the role of infinitely small in nature is infinitely large"-Louis Pasteur                > 
> 
> Keshavmurthy Shashank
> phD candidate
> Kochi University, Graduate School of Kuroshio Science
> Laboratory of Environmental Conservation
> Otsu 200, Monobe, Nankoku-shi
> 783-8502, Kochi, Japan
> alt. id: shashank at cc.kochi-u.ac.jp
> phone: 81 080 3925 3889
> 
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