Abstract
Fusion is an important life history strategy for clonal organisms to increase access to shared resources, to compete for space, and to recover from disturbance. For reef building corals, fragmentation and colony fusion are key components of resilience to disturbance. Observations of small fragments spreading tissue and fusing over artificial substrates prompted experiments aimed at further characterizing Atlantic and Pacific corals under various conditions. Small (∼1–3 cm2) fragments from the same colony spaced regularly over ceramic tiles resulted in spreading at rapid rates (e.g., tens of square centimeters per month) followed by isogenic fusion. Using this strategy, we demonstrate growth, in terms of area encrusted and covered by living tissue, of Orbicella faveolata, Pseudodiploria clivosa, and Porites lobata as high as 63, 48, and 23 cm2 per month respectively. We found a relationship between starting and ending size of fragments, with larger fragments growing at a faster rate. Porites lobata showed significant tank effects on rates of tissue spreading indicating sensitivity to biotic and abiotic factors. The tendency of small coral fragments to encrust and fuse over a variety of surfaces can be exploited for a variety of applications such as coral cultivation, assays for coral growth, and reef restoration.
Highlights
For many organisms, size is closely correlated to survivorship, fecundity, and outcome of competitive interactions (e.g., Hughes, Ayre & Connell, 1992; Hall & Hughes, 1996; Sakai, 1998; Smith & Hughes, 1999; Palmer, 2004; Ayre & Grosberg, 2005; Marshall, Cook & Emlet, 2006)
Orbicella faveolata and Pseudodiploria clivosa fusion experiments Five ramets of Orbicella faveolata from the same donor colony and of similar size were each fragmented into 0.86 ± 0.22 cm2 pieces and glued to 5 ceramic
The overall rate of growth for common Atlantic and Pacific corals across all observations was ∼20 cm2/month ± 25 cm2/month, with a minimum of 0.2 cm2/month for Solenastrea bournoni and a maximum of 63.2 cm2/month for Orbicella faveolata (Table 1). These observations occurred over variable sampling periods and under various sampling conditions and some of these factors were examined in more detailed experiments for Orbicella faveolata, Pseudodiploria clivosa, and Porites lobata
Summary
Size is closely correlated to survivorship, fecundity, and outcome of competitive interactions (e.g., Hughes, Ayre & Connell, 1992; Hall & Hughes, 1996; Sakai, 1998; Smith & Hughes, 1999; Palmer, 2004; Ayre & Grosberg, 2005; Marshall, Cook & Emlet, 2006) For clonal organisms such as corals, the smallest size classes (e.g., including larvae, newly settled recruits, and small fragments) suffer the highest rates of mortality (Vermeij & Bak, 2002; Raymundo & Maypa, 2004; Forsman, Rinkevich & Hunter, 2006). The present study focuses exclusively isogenic fusion, which is defined as the fusion of several ramets (fragments) from the same genet (parent colony)
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