Working with coral spawn in Florida

[revhtree]

Biologists from The Florida Aquarium, Steinhart Aquarium in the California Academy of Sciences, Moody Gardens, Disney’s The Seas, and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium have gathered at the Coral Restoration Foundation’s facility in the Florida Keys to continue to expand our understanding of the sexual reproduction of the areas endangered Acropora cervicornis and Acropora palmata corals.
The endangered corals seem to spawn within a few days of the full moon, but these cycles are not fully understood. So, each night of a probable spawn, the scientists SCUBA dive around coral heads late into the night looking for signs of gamete release. If there is spawn, the corals are tented with gamete collectors, and then the gametes are rushed to a la where they are carefully tended through their first critical days of development. Once the larval corals stop swimming and literally settle onto prepared substrate, they are brought to The Florida Aquarium to be grown to maturity. This months, the offshore spawning has been relatively uneventful, possibly due to the short interval between the cycle of full moons of August and September. However, the 2012 Florida Coral spawning season has already produced several exciting results.

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