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Diving Bonaire: Coral Spawning (blooming)
Bonaire Talk: Diving Bonaire: Archives: Archives 1999-2005: Archives 1999-05-18 to 2000-12-28: Coral Spawning (blooming)
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Steven Springer on Tuesday, July 13, 1999 - 11:08 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Would like to find out what dates that coral spawns in Bonaire. Anyone know?

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By michael gaynor on Tuesday, July 13, 1999 - 1:59 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

contact jcligon@bonairelive.com. He generally knows about the spawning cycle..

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Linda Richter on Wednesday, July 21, 1999 - 11:49 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

The coral spawning depends on the full moon. August 27th and Spetember 25th are the full moons this year to watch for. After the August full moon is the heavier spawning time. Spawning happens a couple of days to about 7-8 days after the full moon depending on the water temperature and the species of coral. The elkhorn spawns sooner and the star corals spawn later. Spawning is in the evening. Elkhorn is tough to watch for since it likes shallow, surge type areas. Divers will take a quick dip at the same site every night after the full moon to see if the corals are readying the egg and sperm packets. Most of the same specie will spawn on the same night.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Antonio Ferrer on Wednesday, July 28, 1999 - 11:13 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

I will be in Bonaire at the end of August, so I am interested in the coral spawning. Could you please tell me what to look for? Which nights are the most likely to see coral spawning: 27? Or 28, 29 & 30? Also, is this event a divers only show, or can us "simple" snorkellers get the fun, as well?

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Linda Richter on Wednesday, July 28, 1999 - 11:42 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

I have sent out an email to the local dive operations to see if any presentations or trips are planned yet for this year. Last year I attended a presentation which provided information about location, species, time, etc. Snorkellers should be able to join the fun especially for the shallow elk horn coral.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Linda Richter on Friday, July 30, 1999 - 11:14 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Antonio,

Sand Dollar's Naturalist Jerry Ligon supplied this schedule:
August full moon 26th
On the 5th day after Tuesday August 31 through the 8th day after September 3rd. Each evening they will be presenting a slide presentation at 7:45pm followed by a dive afterwards.

September full moon 25th
On the 5th day after September 30th through October 3rd. They will again be doing the nightly slide presentation and dive.

For your August dates and snorkeling, you will probably want to connect up with Jerry or your dive shop's naturalist. They can direct you to a good elk horn area to stake out and give you info on what to look for. I tried surfing the net for pictures but I came up empty.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Antonio Ferrer on Monday, August 2, 1999 - 6:52 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thank you very much, Linda. I actually will be staying at the Sand Dollar, so I will be in touch with Jerry (I always do his guided snorkel trips anyway!)
I'll let you know what happened!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Josrph McCarthy on Saturday, August 7, 1999 - 6:21 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hello Linda
Perhaps you could check with Jerry if there is any hope of seeing spawning afer the Oct full moon {oct 24}. In all the years I`ve been to Bonaire somehow I never managed to see it.
Thanks Mickey McCarthy

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Steven Springer on Monday, August 9, 1999 - 10:26 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi All,

Hope to be down October 1-11 to catch the tail end of the spawn.

Here is a site that has quicktime movies about coral spawning. They will also send you a VHS video tape for free!!http://www.guam.net/pub/live_spawn/index.html

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By gerard geertjes on Friday, August 13, 1999 - 6:16 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Coral spawning after the October full moon.

A colleague I studied coral spawning at Bari Reef (Sand Dollar) in 1996 and 1997 (for those who are interested: the results were published in the January 1999 issue of Bulletin of Marine Science). In both years after the full moon of October we observed some spawning by corals (mountainous star coral (Montastrea annularis) 6,7 & 8 nights after full moon; boulder star coral (Montastrea cavernosa) 7 nights after full moon; and especially smooth flower coral (Eusmilia fastigiata) 6,7,8 & 9 nights after full moon). During the October spawn, all coral spawning occurred between 21.15 and 22.30 h.

As far as we know, flower coral spawning had not been described before, so that was a Bonairian scoop! During spawning the large polyps of this species become filled with tiny white spheres which are released one by one through the tips of the tentacles during three or four successive nights.

We also saw a lot of other invertebrates spawn, like brittle stars and fire worms (mostly 4 & 5 nights after full moon, between 21.15 and 22.30 h). Maybe this is not as spectacular as a mass-spawning event, still it is interesting and fun to observe.

In general I advise anyone who is going to watch the coral spawning to use a small dive torch instead of the huge floodlights that are so popular. Often the clouds of sperm and eggs are better visible using a tiny light than a powerful beam.

And also please please try to keep those fins and other pieces of equipment off the coral colonies. You won’t believe what I saw during the many night dives at Bari Reef during the spawning periods. It seems that many perfectly capable divers change into human bulldozers after sunset.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Anonymous on Friday, August 13, 1999 - 8:13 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Sounds like the coral will have quite an audience when performing their mating ritual... I hope they are not too embaressed..

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By gerard geertjes on Friday, August 13, 1999 - 11:45 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Where do you think the name "blushing star coral" came from?

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By gerard geertjes on Sunday, August 15, 1999 - 11:02 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

What’s in a name?

I found that my post about coral spawning after the October full moon caused some confusion. Some people on island commented that the common names I used don’t match the scientific names which I added in parentheses. This is a common problem with common names. I looked it up in several books and found that the much consulted “Reef Coral Identification” by Paul Humann uses the following common names for the species I mentioned: Montastraea annularis: lobed star coral (I called it mountainous star coral) and Montastraea cavernosa: great star coral (I called it boulder star coral). However Tom van’t Hof (Guide to the Bonaire Marine Park), William Alevizon (Pisces guide to Caribbean Reef Ecology) and I. & J. Greenberg (Guide to Corals and Fishes of Florida, Bahamas and the Caribbean) call Montastraea annularis: “mountainous star coral” and Eugene Kaplan (Peterson’s field guides: Coral Reefs) calls it “boulder star coral”. To make things even more confusing, van’t Hof and I. & J. Greenberg call Montastraea cavernosa: “cavernous star coral”, while Kaplan calls it: “large cupped boulder coral”.
It should also be noted that Paul Humann distinguishes three species within the so called “Montastraea annularis complex”: M. annularis (lobed star coral); M. franksi (boulder star coral) and M. faveolata (mountainous star coral) (names in parentheses are the common names as used by Paul Humann). There is no hard scientific evidence for recognition of these three species, and for the time being it would be wise to consider them different growth forms of the same species: Montastraea annularis (feel free to pick a common name).

B.T.W. the scientific name for “blushing star coral” is Stephanocoenia michelinii (usually spawns 3 – 7 days after the September full moon between 20.40 and 22.45 h).

Anyone care for some more name calling?

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By michael gaynor on Monday, August 16, 1999 - 7:43 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

And who said coral wasn't interesting!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Linda Richter on Monday, August 16, 1999 - 2:39 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

We had a similiar problem with algea for the Lac Bay project and of course, we added in the complication of having Dutch and English speakers. We found it much easier to stay with the species names which works for everybody. Our only problem was scientists deciding to reclassify an algea and changing the specie name.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Antonio Ferrer on Thursday, September 30, 1999 - 6:20 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Today is the fifth day after the September full moon. Any news of the coral spawning? By the way, I found a video (National Geographic - Jewels of the Caribbean Sea) which have some beautiful sequences of brain coral spawning (among other things)

 


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