[Coral-List] Dendrogyra

[Vassil Zlatarski]

With all my deep pain for the degradation of coral reefs, the
investigations since the 1970s in Cuban Archipelago and in the 1980s around
Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico never established that Pillar coral (Dendrogyra
cylindrus) was a significant reef builder.

Vassil

On Wed, May 26, 2021 at 5:17 AM Eugene Shinn via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> In all my 60+ yearsdiving in the Florida Keys (starting in my senior
> year in high school(1953) I never saw a mailbox placed on pillar coral.
> Remember there were few residents in the Keys and major canal dredging
> started in the late 1950s extending into the early 1960s. I watched it
> all. Major changes began in the 1970s much of it spurred on later by
> creation of the Key Largo Coral Reef Sanctuary, the first Burger King,
> and creation of dive shops.
>
> While doing geological research and drilling around 100  reef cores we
> never encountered Pillar coral. Living ones were rare in the 50s and 60s
> and were never considered significant reef builders. They never could
> have created significant habitat for reef fishes or other reef fauna. I
> have photographed large ones on Jamaican reefs but I can not speak for
> the rest of the Caribbean.Nevertheless, I seriously doubt they have ever
> been significant reef builders anywhere in the Caribbean. They also do
> not appear in exposures of Pleistocene coral reefs. You will not see
> them in the beautiful exposures of reef limestone in the Florida Keys
> Fossil reef quarry on Windley key.Gene
>
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