[Coral-List] RE: watch corals move mucus

[Benjamin Mueller]

Dear Doug,

Thanks for drawingattention to our study:

Thibault Bouderlique,Julian Petersen, Louis Faure, Daniel Abed-Navandi, Anass Bouchnita, BenjaminMueller, Murtazo Nazarov, Lukas Englmaier, Marketa Tesarova, Pedro R. Frade,Tomas Zikmund, Till Koehne, Jozef Kaiser, Kaj Fried, Christian Wild, OlgaPantos, Andreas Hellander, John Bythell, Igor Adameyko (2022) Surface flow forcolonial integration in reef-building corals, Current Biology https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.04.054

Combining live imaging,particle tracking, and mathematical modeling, we could show how highly complexwater currents at coral surfaces and within their gastrovascular cavitiesconnect individual polyps to integrated polyp groups. These groups compete forparticulate food within their boundaries with adjacent groups, suggesting amuch more modular and hierarchical structure within one colony than previously assumed.

Despite this separation,these groups are still integrated in sub-networks which allows exchange betweengroups, e.g. to distribute seawater across the colonies surface to avoiddesiccation when air-exposed.

Similarly, also thecurrents in the gastrovascular cavities are connected and may play importantroles in the exchange of nutrients, gases, or metabolite across thesegastrovascular networks and may even serve to (re-)distribute Symbiodiniaceaeacross different parts of the colony.

Cheers
Ben

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Dr. Benjamin Mueller
Marine Biologist

University of Amsterdam (UvA)Department of Freshwater and Marine EcologyInstitute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED)
Science Park 904P.O. Box 94248, AmsterdamThe Netherlands
Phone:  +31 649883575Mail: muellerb at ymail.com
Web: www.uva.nl