DNA reveals the past and future of coral reefs
New DNA techniques are being used to understand how coral reacted to the end of the last ice age in order to better predict how they will cope with current changes to the climate. James Cook Univer
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University Townsville
Queensland 4811 Australia
Phone: 61 7 4781 4000
Email: info@coralcoe.org.au
Our knowledge of the various modes of sexual reproduction in stony corals has increased greatly during the last two decades, but is far from encompassing the wide variety of reproductive strategies exhibited by this group. Here, for the first time in stony corals, I report on sex change exhibited by two mushroom corals, Fungia repanda and Ctenactis echinata in Okinawa, Japan.
Sex change in animals has been reported as occurring from M-F (male to female i.e., protandry) and vice versa i.e., F-M (protogyny), but in a few cases also as bidirectional. While F. repanda exhibited protandry only, C. echinata revealed a repetitive mode of sex change, which greatly resembles that of dioecious plants that display labile sexuality in response to energetic and/or environmental constraints. I posit that, similar to these plants, in the studied corals sex change increases their overall fitness, reinforcing the important role of reproductive plasticity in scleractinian corals in determining their evolutionary success.
New DNA techniques are being used to understand how coral reacted to the end of the last ice age in order to better predict how they will cope with current changes to the climate. James Cook Univer
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Partner Research Institutions
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University Townsville
Queensland 4811 Australia
Phone: 61 7 4781 4000
Email: info@coralcoe.org.au