Coral Library (Dissertation idea)

[CosplayF0x]

Hey all,

I was wondering if anyone would donate snippings of corals to a university in wales so that one day we could collect enough from both wild species and domesticated species, to investigate the viability of cross breeding and repopulating coral reefs once we have stabalised the oceans.

Regards
A curious Uni student

 

[Coral_North]

sp; stabilized.

 

[Sallstrom]

Hey all,

I was wondering if anyone would donate snippings of corals to a university in wales so that one day we could collect enough from both wild species and domesticated species, to investigate the viability of cross breeding and repopulating coral reefs once we have stabalised the oceans.

Regards
A curious Uni student

Hi,

Im sure we can donate some in the future(I work at a public aquarium in Sweden). We also try to collect(and determine what species we already have) and to create a living "gene bank" together with other aquariums. We've started some work sampling DNA from Seriatopora hystrix from around Sweden and hopefully from Europe soon.

What is your plan more in detail? Sound interesting

/ David

 

[Syoung]

What are the benefits between cross breeding "wild" and "domesticated"?

Are there significant changes in "domesticated" corals? And what is defined as domesticated? Something that has been fragged and regrown X times in personal tanks, or spawned?

Very interesting, looking forward to hearing more.

 

[CosplayF0x]

sp; stabilized.

Thanks thought I missed something

 

[CosplayF0x]

What are the benefits between cross breeding "wild" and "domesticated"?

Are there significant changes in "domesticated" corals? And what is defined as domesticated? Something that has been fragged and regrown X times in personal tanks, or spawned?

Very interesting, looking forward to hearing more.

So far no research has been done to my knowledge on the benefits of it. Many species that live in commercial fish tanks are not found in the ocean due to their vibrant colors and rapidly evolving patterns with new variants being found every so often due to accidental cross breeding of colors or textures. Such as A can species and even some birds nest corals.

I want to research into ways the reefs, with their still catastrophic bleaching percentages, can be brought back to the vibrant days of their youth. Much research has to be put into if certain species would survive in the wild seas, or if they have become too used to strict controlled parameters.

 

[CosplayF0x]

Hi,

Im sure we can donate some in the future(I work at a public aquarium in Sweden). We also try to collect(and determine what species we already have) and to create a living "gene bank" together with other aquariums. We've started some work sampling DNA from Seriatopora hystrix from around Sweden and hopefully from Europe soon.

What is your plan more in detail? Sound interesting

/ David

Well I actually want to petition to open a teaching aquarium on or near Singleton University in wales that centers on coral research. That is the end goal As it is a marine biology university, it would be a good opportunity to reach deeper into what ways we can look at to repopulate critically damaged reefs. As a vital niche in the ocean, coral reef rehabilitation are sadly not researched enough in my opinion.

As far as I had known, in the states there are hundreds of men and women who keep these beautiful tanks but never fully understand what treasures they have past the dollar amounts.

My dissertation (and I'm starting this at the tail end of my first year so I can collect the proper data) would focus on the idea of creating a global coral bank. Every species taken in small clippings, cataloged and kept alive to one day repopulate the reefs and balance the ecosystem again. With that comes the side mission of wondering if species that have been bred in comercial pet stores differ genetically on a drastic scale from what we see in the ocean. If so, could they be re-introduced, and would it be detrimental to the reef or beneficial if these species were bred back into their wild cousins to become part of the reefs again?

Those are just some of the rough ideas I have. I want to major in Coral Propegation and figure out if there's anything we can still do aside from collect what samples we can and cross our fingers as most people assume marine biologists do.

 

[Sallstrom]

Well I actually want to petition to open a teaching aquarium on or near Singleton University in wales that centers on coral research. That is the end goal As it is a marine biology university, it would be a good opportunity to reach deeper into what ways we can look at to repopulate critically damaged reefs. As a vital niche in the ocean, coral reef rehabilitation are sadly not researched enough in my opinion.

As far as I had known, in the states there are hundreds of men and women who keep these beautiful tanks but never fully understand what treasures they have past the dollar amounts.

My dissertation (and I'm starting this at the tail end of my first year so I can collect the proper data) would focus on the idea of creating a global coral bank. Every species taken in small clippings, cataloged and kept alive to one day repopulate the reefs and balance the ecosystem again. With that comes the side mission of wondering if species that have been bred in comercial pet stores differ genetically on a drastic scale from what we see in the ocean. If so, could they be re-introduced, and would it be detrimental to the reef or beneficial if these species were bred back into their wild cousins to become part of the reefs again?

Those are just some of the rough ideas I have. I want to major in Coral Propegation and figure out if there's anything we can still do aside from collect what samples we can and cross our fingers as most people assume marine biologists do.

Okey! Sound like a lot of good plans

For research in sexual reproduction in captivity you should talk to Jaime Craggs at Horniman Museum & Gardens. He is doing his phD in that subject. Here is a pretty new article:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.3538/full

And here is an article from Terry Hughes about Coral reefs in the anthropocene:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22901

As I wrote erlier I work at a small public aquarium/museum as a marine biologist, and we do some of the things you talk about. We talk to a lot school classes, exhibit live coral reefs, do research on tropical corals(we have a small lab/DNA-lab). And we have had a couple students from the university in Gothenburg doing their major at the Aquarium. So send a pm if you would like to know more

/ David