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First record of multi-species synchronous coral spawning from Malaysia

Knowledge about the timing and synchrony of coral spawning has important implications for both the ecology and management of coral reef ecosystems. Data on the timing of spawning and extent of synchrony, however, are still lacking for many coral reefs, particularly from equatorial regions and from l...

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Autores principales: Chelliah, Alvin, Amar, Halimi Bin, Hyde, Julian, Yewdall, Katie, Steinberg, Peter D., Guest, James R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4338799/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25737817
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.777
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author Chelliah, Alvin
Amar, Halimi Bin
Hyde, Julian
Yewdall, Katie
Steinberg, Peter D.
Guest, James R.
author_facet Chelliah, Alvin
Amar, Halimi Bin
Hyde, Julian
Yewdall, Katie
Steinberg, Peter D.
Guest, James R.
author_sort Chelliah, Alvin
collection PubMed
description Knowledge about the timing and synchrony of coral spawning has important implications for both the ecology and management of coral reef ecosystems. Data on the timing of spawning and extent of synchrony, however, are still lacking for many coral reefs, particularly from equatorial regions and from locations within the coral triangle. Here we present the first documentation of a multi-species coral spawning event from reefs around Pulau Tioman, Peninsular Malaysia, a popular diving and tourist destination located on the edge of the coral triangle. At least 8 coral species from 3 genera (Acropora, Montipora and Porites) participated in multi-species spawning over five nights in April 2014, between two nights before and two nights after the full moon. In addition, two Acropora species were witnessed spawning one night prior to the full moon in October 2014. While two of the Acropora species that reproduced in April (A. millepora and A. nasuta) exhibited highly synchronous spawning (100% of sampled colonies), two other common species (A. hyacinthus and A. digitifera) did not contain visible eggs in the majority of colonies sampled (i.e., <15% of colonies) in either April or October, suggesting that these species spawn at other times of the year. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first detailed documented observation of multi-species coral spawning from reefs in Malaysia. These data provide further support for the contention that this phenomenon is a feature of all speciose coral assemblages, including equatorial reefs. More research is needed, however, to determine the seasonal cycles and extent of spawning synchrony on these reefs and elsewhere in Malaysia.
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spelling pubmed-43387992015-03-03 First record of multi-species synchronous coral spawning from Malaysia Chelliah, Alvin Amar, Halimi Bin Hyde, Julian Yewdall, Katie Steinberg, Peter D. Guest, James R. PeerJ Ecology Knowledge about the timing and synchrony of coral spawning has important implications for both the ecology and management of coral reef ecosystems. Data on the timing of spawning and extent of synchrony, however, are still lacking for many coral reefs, particularly from equatorial regions and from locations within the coral triangle. Here we present the first documentation of a multi-species coral spawning event from reefs around Pulau Tioman, Peninsular Malaysia, a popular diving and tourist destination located on the edge of the coral triangle. At least 8 coral species from 3 genera (Acropora, Montipora and Porites) participated in multi-species spawning over five nights in April 2014, between two nights before and two nights after the full moon. In addition, two Acropora species were witnessed spawning one night prior to the full moon in October 2014. While two of the Acropora species that reproduced in April (A. millepora and A. nasuta) exhibited highly synchronous spawning (100% of sampled colonies), two other common species (A. hyacinthus and A. digitifera) did not contain visible eggs in the majority of colonies sampled (i.e., <15% of colonies) in either April or October, suggesting that these species spawn at other times of the year. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first detailed documented observation of multi-species coral spawning from reefs in Malaysia. These data provide further support for the contention that this phenomenon is a feature of all speciose coral assemblages, including equatorial reefs. More research is needed, however, to determine the seasonal cycles and extent of spawning synchrony on these reefs and elsewhere in Malaysia. PeerJ Inc. 2015-02-17 /pmc/articles/PMC4338799/ /pubmed/25737817 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.777 Text en © 2015 Chelliah et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Ecology
Chelliah, Alvin
Amar, Halimi Bin
Hyde, Julian
Yewdall, Katie
Steinberg, Peter D.
Guest, James R.
First record of multi-species synchronous coral spawning from Malaysia
title First record of multi-species synchronous coral spawning from Malaysia
title_full First record of multi-species synchronous coral spawning from Malaysia
title_fullStr First record of multi-species synchronous coral spawning from Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed First record of multi-species synchronous coral spawning from Malaysia
title_short First record of multi-species synchronous coral spawning from Malaysia
title_sort first record of multi-species synchronous coral spawning from malaysia
topic Ecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4338799/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25737817
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.777
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