Indeed last week the corals spawned and now everybody is busy with raising baby corals and doing all kinds of experiments on these little guys. Now students are taking care of several thousands of babies. It does actually takes a lot of time and energy as so many little guys kept in some plastic buckets need quite frequent cleaning and water change.
My own research is not focused on this aspect of coral biology (this is maybe why I am the one with still energy to write the blog), but I actually appreciated helping out to get in-situ samples at various times of the night. Diving at night is always magical as all kind of critters come out while the day guys are sleeping.
Here are a few pictures of nice encounters before or after sampling.
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| Acropora spawning, each polyp releases bundles of mixed eggs and sperm. The timing is very synchronised within a species to allow eggs and sperm from different colonies to meet and produce cute baby corals. |
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| Many shrimps and crabs are enjoying the protection of the corals. |
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| Some fishes also like to live on the coral branches, I wonder if they enjoy the polyp tentacles tickling their belly... |
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| A little cuttlefish seems to play hide and seek with algae balls |
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| But the champion at hide and seek was this little sole. I could almost hear it say "I can see you but you cannot see me!" |
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