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Diving Bonaire: Coral Spawn Redux
Bonaire Talk: Diving Bonaire: Archives: Archives 1999-2005: Archives - 2002-05-24 to 2002-11-25: Coral Spawn Redux
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter - NetTech on Monday, October 7, 2002 - 11:57 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

I finally had (or made) the time to post some pictures from the Coral Spawn night dive we did with a bunch of BonaireTalkers about a week and a half ago, along with a dive I took the following night by myself. Please see: http://www.bonairediving.com/richter/20020928-CoralSpawnNightDiving/index.html

Also at the above address is a link to a large 4MB animated GIF showing a boulder star coral spawning. If you're willing to wait for the download to complete it's pretty neat to watch.

Jake

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Marc @ CrystalVisions on Monday, October 7, 2002 - 12:16 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Pretty neat indeed :) Oh, and the wait isn't much trouble at all when you're on a 2MB connection... *evil grin*

Thanx Jake!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Peter Cabus on Monday, October 7, 2002 - 12:59 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Great stuff!!!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cynde Lee on Monday, October 7, 2002 - 1:15 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

thanks Jake! once again, absoultely amazing and wonderful!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Deborah Campbell on Monday, October 7, 2002 - 2:09 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Great pictures, Jake - thanks for posting. Next best thing to being there in person!

-Deborah

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Glen Reem on Monday, October 7, 2002 - 4:49 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Jake,

Has anyone explained/demonstrated the mechanism for simultaneous maturation/release by what I thought were physically unconnected animals?? Chemical??

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kay Powers on Monday, October 7, 2002 - 5:20 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Jake,

Great presentation. Nice photos. Keep the dives coming. :)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Sarah on Monday, October 7, 2002 - 7:46 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thanks Jake, I really enjoyed that..

I think that the simultaneous release has something to do with gamete incompatibilities. In other words the two species that spawn simultaneously, do not readily hybridize?????? I'm not certain of this, but I believe there are three species, one spawns 12 hours before the other two.. so there's a barrier there?????

I'll need to research this, focusing on island bio at the present, but if someone knows the answer, please do tell?

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter - NetTech on Tuesday, October 8, 2002 - 12:04 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Sarah,

What about the simultaneous release of eggs/sperm by just one section of a coral colony (part or all of a particular coral head)? Any ideas what triggers that?

Jake

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Sarah on Tuesday, October 8, 2002 - 8:37 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hmmm, well, it's late, but I'll give it a go.. here's an idea.. the BSC is hermaphroditic, producing both eggs and sperm from a single polyp. It is my understanding that some of the polyps do not produce gonads..

In some closely related species, the sperm of one species may fertilize the egg of another.. the sperm and egg cells have protein molecules on their surfaces that identify them with the same species. A successful unification comes from their synchronized release. Probably not very clear.. but it is late!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Glen Reem on Wednesday, October 9, 2002 - 11:32 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Sarah,

Synchronism makes sense for promoting fertilization. How does the synchronism happen?

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cynde Lee on Wednesday, October 9, 2002 - 11:55 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

glen, when the director gives the signal to go ahead on the count of 3.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Sarah on Wednesday, October 9, 2002 - 1:44 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

The synchronism is basically down to external cycles (the moon, temp cycles and so on..) but it's not only these external cycles, the synchronism is also down to chemical stimuli in the surrounding water that is present when spawning starts. I'm still half asleep here, but hope this is all beginning to make sense..:)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cynde Lee on Wednesday, October 9, 2002 - 3:02 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

ok sarah, you are right, i guess it isn't the director giving the count of 3cam.jpg

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter - NetTech on Wednesday, October 9, 2002 - 3:44 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Sarah,

That explains synchronism (partially anyway) about spawning of multiple colonies at around the same time. It does not explain how the _invidual polyps_ of a _portion of an individual colony_ know to spawn within less than a second of each other (look at my BSC animation to see that happening).

The behavior I saw repeatedly during the spawn was that patches of coral colonies (i.e. a cluster of polyps which was not the whole coral head) would spawn at virtually the same time (95% of the polyps in the first half second or so, with some stragglers up to as much as a few seconds later).

Separately, various colonies in different locations would also be spawning, but for those in sight, not at exactly the same time (e.g. coral colony A's patch X would not spawn at same time as nearby coral colony B's patch Y - and, not all of coral colony A would spawn at the same time - it usually spawned in several different patches at different times).

Does that help clarify what I'm asking about a bit more?

Jake

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ginny Stokes on Wednesday, October 9, 2002 - 4:11 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Jake, thank you again for sharing! Your still, night-dive photos are amazing...you might even tempt me to try another night dive (my two previous experiences have been less than memorable).

Here's a beginner question: do the coral spawn only in the late summer/early fall, or does it happen year-round?

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter - NetTech on Wednesday, October 9, 2002 - 4:18 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Just once a year, or so. Usually some number of days after the August or September full moon (depending on which time of month the moon is, the water temperature at the time, etc.)

Jake

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Faith M. Senie on Wednesday, October 9, 2002 - 11:12 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Of course, there's always.... telepathy!

Faith

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Brian on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 2:15 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Nice movie sequence Jake.

We watched the boulder coral spawning and what I think I saw was the egg packages slowly emerging from the polyps along one area. Then the packages were passed into the polyps tentacles and held and then released simultaneously. Cynde's 1 2 3 works for me.

Brian

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter - NetTech on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 8:07 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Brian,

That sounds right to me too. Although the process of the egg packets emerging so you can see them in the center of the polyps is a long one. I saw coral heads with hints of orange packets in amongst the polyps for at least an hour before they spawned.

Jake

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Brian on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 8:59 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Jake

I have quite a few pictures which I am scanning in (40 rolls!) I will post a few spawning shots later in the week.

Brian

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Sarah on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 2:53 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Jake, I'm not 100% certain of the answer to your Q. But I know someone (at Uni) that will be.. I'm in the lab Monday, he teaches that day, I'll run it by him then....

But at least you now know a little more about synchronism.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Liz Ginocchio on Saturday, October 12, 2002 - 8:09 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Jake, your pictures bring back GREAT memories from our dive that night. We just got home at 3am this morning to dreary nor'easter weather, and these pics bring back the smile to my face. Thanks so much. Also, Heinrick's tape is fantastic! We picked it up from him a few days after we dove! Thanks again for the great invite! Liz

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Brian on Tuesday, October 15, 2002 - 3:34 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Here a few pictures from the spawning, the three rowed Sea Cucumber was very strange.

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Carole Baker on Tuesday, October 15, 2002 - 7:03 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Awesome, Brian! Thanks. Carole

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Carole Baker on Tuesday, October 15, 2002 - 7:08 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Wow, Jake! I'm glad I "scrolled up" on this page....I had not caught your entry with your site and photos....unbelievable! You guys are sooo good at this and we are sooo good and enjoying your shots. I have passed your page along to all of my diving friends all over the world so they can enjoy everything, too....yours too, Brian! Thanks again, guys. Carole

 


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