[Coral-List] A new paper now in eLIFE regarding coral spawning signalling

[Dorothea Bender]

Dear Listers,


I would like to draw your attention to this very interesting paper by Kaniewska et al. that has recently been published in eLIFE:

Abstract
Many reef-building corals participate in a mass-spawning event that occurs yearly on the Great Barrier Reef. This coral reproductive event is one of earth's most prominent examples of synchronised behavior, and coral reproductive success is vital to the persistence of coral reef ecosystems. Although several environmental cues have been implicated in the timing of mass spawning, the specific sensory cues that function together with endogenous clock mechanisms to ensure accurate timing of gamete release are largely unknown. Here, we show that moonlight is an important external stimulus for mass spawning synchrony and describe the potential mechanisms underlying the ability of corals to detect environmental triggers for the signaling cascades that ultimately result in gamete release. Our study increases the understanding of reproductive chronobiology in corals and strongly supports the hypothesis that coral gamete release is achieved by a complex array of potential neurohormones and light-sensing molecules.

The full paper and additional information can be found here

<http://elifesciences.org/>

http://elifesciences.org<http://elifesciences.org/>

http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e09991

http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e12936

<http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e12936>


Regards,


Dorothea Bender-Champ, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Coral Reef Ecosystems Lab & ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies,

School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland


Level 7, Building #60, Research Rd

St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia

ph: (07)  334 63063