[Coral-List] Coral age, DNA and spatial distribution
di ha
bethead345 at hotmail.com
Tue Mar 7 22:37:40 EST 2006
Greetings all,
I read somewhere through asexual reproduction (ie natural fragmentation)
that certain individual corals could infact live forever, the parent colony
dies but fragments with the same DNA survives. (first question, is this
correct or is a clownfish having a laugh at me?)
My question is this has there been any DNA work done over a reef front
looking at asexual reproductive colonisation/spatial distribution and then
the respective age of each coral determined? This might indicate the ability
of coral species to with stand environmental/anthropogenic impacts that have
occured over time within that local area.
I realise that the massive favites and favia's are the easiest to age
(though don't naturally fragment that often, easy and successful with a
denists drill but that doesn't occur naturally underwater) and the
acropora's are the easiest to naturally fragment, but aging them??
Just thinking out aloud
any comments would be greatly appreciated
Dion
More information about the Coral-List
mailing list