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Split spawning realigns coral reproduction with optimal environmental windows
Split spawning in coral populations occurs when gamete maturation and mass spawning are split over two consecutive months. While split spawning has been observed at many reefs, little is known about the frequency and significance of these events. Here we show that split spawning occurred frequently...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5818648/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29459700 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03175-2 |
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author | Foster, Taryn Heyward, Andrew J. Gilmour, James P. |
author_facet | Foster, Taryn Heyward, Andrew J. Gilmour, James P. |
author_sort | Foster, Taryn |
collection | PubMed |
description | Split spawning in coral populations occurs when gamete maturation and mass spawning are split over two consecutive months. While split spawning has been observed at many reefs, little is known about the frequency and significance of these events. Here we show that split spawning occurred frequently and predictably over a decade at Scott Reef. Split spawning overlays the biannual spawning pattern in the region and occurs when the full moon falls in the first week of the usual spawning month, or the last week of the previous month. Additionally, in split years most species have their main spawning event after a 13-month lunar cycle, in the month following the usual spawning month. Without split spawning, spawn dates would shift by ~10 days each year to occur outside of optimal environmental windows. Our results suggest that split spawning is driven by a disconnect between lunar and seasonal cues, and is analogous with a ‘leap year’ in coral reproduction, realigning spawning dates with favourable conditions for reproduction. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5818648 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-58186482018-02-22 Split spawning realigns coral reproduction with optimal environmental windows Foster, Taryn Heyward, Andrew J. Gilmour, James P. Nat Commun Article Split spawning in coral populations occurs when gamete maturation and mass spawning are split over two consecutive months. While split spawning has been observed at many reefs, little is known about the frequency and significance of these events. Here we show that split spawning occurred frequently and predictably over a decade at Scott Reef. Split spawning overlays the biannual spawning pattern in the region and occurs when the full moon falls in the first week of the usual spawning month, or the last week of the previous month. Additionally, in split years most species have their main spawning event after a 13-month lunar cycle, in the month following the usual spawning month. Without split spawning, spawn dates would shift by ~10 days each year to occur outside of optimal environmental windows. Our results suggest that split spawning is driven by a disconnect between lunar and seasonal cues, and is analogous with a ‘leap year’ in coral reproduction, realigning spawning dates with favourable conditions for reproduction. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-02-19 /pmc/articles/PMC5818648/ /pubmed/29459700 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03175-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Foster, Taryn Heyward, Andrew J. Gilmour, James P. Split spawning realigns coral reproduction with optimal environmental windows |
title | Split spawning realigns coral reproduction with optimal environmental windows |
title_full | Split spawning realigns coral reproduction with optimal environmental windows |
title_fullStr | Split spawning realigns coral reproduction with optimal environmental windows |
title_full_unstemmed | Split spawning realigns coral reproduction with optimal environmental windows |
title_short | Split spawning realigns coral reproduction with optimal environmental windows |
title_sort | split spawning realigns coral reproduction with optimal environmental windows |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5818648/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29459700 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03175-2 |
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