[Coral-List] coral bleaching: response to Goreau
Margie Atkinson
margiea at gbrmpa.gov.au
Wed May 31 22:12:00 EDT 2006
Dear Listers
I agree with the concept of starting a dialogue between coral
researchers and coral collectors and aquarists - it is long overdue!
I work in a management capacity with the commercial coral fishery on
the GBR and have seen that there is a wealth of knowledge available
from these collectors and the aquarium industry in general.
Unfortunately there seems to have been little in the way of shared
forums between the two sectors. Coral aquarists/enthusiasts often
share their knowledge through list serves, online discussion groups
and club meetings and newsletters - rarely through the published
(scientific) literature. Most scientific papers dealing with
physiology and ecology are not user friendly for the lay person so are
unlikely to have been discovered by aquarists.
I realise also that in many parts of the world commercial coral
collection has a bad reputation for causing significant environmental
impact, which may have contributed to the apparent lack of engagement
between the two sectors.
The knowledge base for keeping corals in aquariums is expanding
exponentially and many species that, a few years ago, were deemed
difficult to keep are now relatively easy - I'm sure some of the
industry observations that have led to these developments could help
ecologists and physiologists refine their hypotheses and experimental
designs to better understand the mechanisms involved. Also, people who
keep coral in domestic aquaria tend to be extremely passionate and
observant about the occupants and recount extraordinary tales about
what the corals do under various scenarios - maybe consideration of
these "outliers" may assist our understanding of the fundamental
processes that still elude us!
Another area where there is considerable scope for intersection
between researchers and the aquarium industry is that of field
observations. On the GBR, coral is collected via a small well-managed
fishery that uses best practice approaches. Many collectors on the GBR
have been in the industry a long time and have a strong sense of
stewardship. They dive regularly (often daily) in places that
scientists generally don't go - not just on the reef but in
inter-reefal areas, so they have a good feel for broad coral community
patterns over quite long timeframes as well as for the behaviour and
distribution of a substantial number of coral species.
Some of the collectors already feed into the GBRMPA's Bleachwatch
program providing regular reports about the health of the reefs they
collect from and the particular species that are bleaching and to what
depth etc. It has been my experience also that many of the favoured
aquarium corals that are assumed to be "rare" on coral reefs,
especially in shallow water, are sometimes very abundant
inter-reefally on sediment flats - again, places that scientists may
not dive very often. This observation is supported by recent remote
controlled video work coming out of the AIMS Seabed biodiversity
project.
I see that Shashank has mentioned Julian's book - another good
reference for aquarium corals is:
Borneman, E.H., 2001: Aquarium Corals: Selection, Husbandry and
Natural History. TFH Publications, New Jersey and Microcosm Books,
Vermont pp 464.
Regards
Margie
shashank Keshavmurthy wrote:
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: [1]shashank at cc.kochi-u.ac.jp
phone: 81 080 3925 3889
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Margie Atkinson
Project Manager
Fisheries Issues Group
Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
PO Box 1379, Townsville, QLD 4810, Australia
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