Abstract
There is an urgent need to develop means of ex situ biobanking and biopreserving corals and other marine organisms whose habitats have been compromised by climate change and other anthropogenic stressors. To optimize laboratory growth of soft corals in a way that could also benefit industry (e.g., aquarium trade), three culture systems were tested herein with Sarcophyton glaucum: (1) a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) without exogenous biological input (RAS−B), (2) a RAS with “live” rocks and an exogenous food supply (RAS+B), and (3) a simple flow-through system (FTS) featuring partially filtered natural seawater. In each system, the effects of two levels of photosynthetically active radiation (100 or 200 μmol quanta m−2 s−1) and flow velocity (5 or 15 cm s−1) were assessed, and a number of soft coral response variables were measured. All cultured corals survived the multi-month incubation, yet those of the RAS−B grew slowly and even paled; however, once they were fed (RAS−B modified to RAS+B), their pigmentation increased, and their oral discs readily expanded. Light had a more pronounced effect in the RAS−B system, while flow affected certain coral response variables in the FTS tanks; there were few effects of light or flow in the RAS+B system, potentially highlighting the importance of heterotrophy. Unlike the ceramic pedestals of the FTS, those of the RAS+B did not regularly become biofouled by algae. In concert with the aforementioned physiological findings, we therefore recommend RAS+B systems as a superior means of biopreservating and biobanking soft corals.
Highlights
There is an urgent need to develop means of ex situ biobanking and biopreserving corals and other marine organisms whose habitats have been compromised by climate change and other anthropogenic stressors
We demonstrated that light and flow effects on soft coral physiology are culture system-dependent
Given that (1) soft corals are mostly fleshly and (2) oral disc diameter (ODD) measurements can be made in only several seconds, we advocate assessing both ODD and the BW-based SGR in future studies of soft corals, especially Sarcophyton
Summary
There is an urgent need to develop means of ex situ biobanking and biopreserving corals and other marine organisms whose habitats have been compromised by climate change and other anthropogenic stressors. Other studies have used recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) in which seawater quality parameters can be readily and automatically modulated by a variety of microprocessor-based dosing systems[12−14] While biological factors, such as “live rocks” (typically dead coral skeleton encrusted by crustose coralline algae) that accumulate rich microbial flora[15,16] and heterotrophic feeding[4−5,17], have been explored more recently, a systemic comparison across different types of culture systems has not yet been achieved for soft corals. Light intensity and flow velocity have been examined in numerous soft coral e xperiments[7,17−19] The former is especially important for soft corals harboring dinoflagellates, whose photosynthetic performance can directly or indirectly affect the physiology and growth of their h osts[20,21]. Research focused on the interaction of light and flow on soft coral physiology is needed
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