Coral DNA

[Back where it all began]

after reading many thoughts on the nitrate/phosphate question, I began to wonder about the corals different adaptability to various aquarium environments. As you know, adaptability, or seeming adaptability, can be ascribed to a genetic component. Different corals of the same “species” might be harvested from different ocean environments and therefore possess a slightly different genome, or expression of that genome. This might explain the observations that we see when different reefers offer their numbers for success. If so, the translation of one persons success to another’s environment may not work.
Or I could be way off.

 

[ZoWhat]

you're way off.

 

[Back where it all began]

Haha. Some would say I am way off, but how does that apply here?

 

[KrisReef]

Coral are amazing creatures. Many of them reproduce by exchanging dna ( this is a family site) through broadcast reproduction events synchronized with solar and lunar cycles. Once that event happens the recombinants that are successfully formed drift for a bit and acquire symbiotic photosynthetic algae that supply energy to the coral. The drifting coral then must find a suitable place to locate on the reef where light and currents will provide adequate nutrition for the coral to thrive.

(Do you know how difficult it is to find a good reef to settle on? They don’t have real estate agents or Air B&B services to help pick a spot. But that aside is for another thread.)

So our coral grows and is harvested in the wild and after a forced migration they typically end up in a few different captive systems before they settle into our tanks. If our parameters are good and stable the relocated coral has a chance of survival if it can keep its symbiotic zooxanthellae alive and producing the extra energy the coral requires.

I don’t know if the corals own dna play a direct role in survival for the coral but it seems likely that it does, probably in gene expression under different circumstances.

 

[Back where it all began]

Krisreef, I agree and very nice observation. Geneticists used to pour over the concept of the genotype and the phenotype. The DNA is the genotype and it’s expression in the external environment is the phenotype. As we see everyday, this complex interplay produces many differences in families and others. As you say, a coral reproduces, copies it’s genome, and distribution carries it elsewhere. If it ends up in our tanks, we only see the end result, not the “trail” that leads back in time. This being said, we look at the “same” corals, fish in separate tanks and chase numbers when we may not be recognizing the inherent genetic differences between each, and may be missing some visual clues that may be more important, or at least a great part of the story.

 

[fredk]

Maybe not far off, but it's hard to tell. We know that genes can express differently in different environment (proteins that fold differently, so function differently). Google epigenetics. I don't know that anybody has done epigenetics research on corals.