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More advanced understanding of sps nutrient intake


wasp

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Here's an interesting piece http://zeovit.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4229

Do click the article referenced in the first post.

It is all quite advanced and is not for everybody, nor is it nessecary to have a thorough understanding of all this stuff. But for the boffins among us, with some spare time, it is a very interesting read. Enjoy!

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Quite interesting, some cool pics in there.

Here's what I got from it:

There are differences in elemental concentrations in various parts of the coral during the day, as opposed to night:

JEB4282F7.gif

Graph A = seawater

Graph B = extrathecal coelenteron

Graph C = internal coelenteron

They propose a mechanism (theory) for this, relating to the mucus coat. They suggest that the mucus coat acts as a dynamic semi-permiable membrane allowing selective ion traversal through it. They suggest that the mucus layer may in part control transport of particular ions to inter layers of the coral tissue.

However from what I can see, they never took any measurements of the mucus layer (Did anyone see them anywhere? I may have missed them.). They cite two papers which show that mucus production decreases at night for some species of coral:

Crossland, C. J. (1987). In situ release of mucus and DOC-lipid from the corals Acropora variabilis and Stylophora pistillata in different light regimes. Coral Reefs 6,35 -42.

Crossland, C. J., Barnes, D. J. and Borowitzka, M. A. (1980). Diurnal lipid and mucus production in the staghorn coral Acropora acuminata. Mar. Biol. 60, 81-90.

These means that any drawing any day/night relationship between the mucus coat and ion concentrations, is speculation based on unobserved behaviour at best.

Having said that, the point of the paper was to show evidence of active transport (as opposed to passive diffusion) of elements to the inner layers of the coral. From the data, it looks like they succeeding in showing that.

It also reiterates how little detail is really known about the detailed mechanisms of calcification in corals.

Layton

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