Scientific articles
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2011
Diel rhythmicity of lipid-body formation in coral - Symbiodinium endosymbiosis
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2011
Due to the potential for increasing ocean temperatures to detrimentally impact reef-building corals, there is an urgent need to better understand not only the coral thermal stress response, but also natural variation in their sub-cellular composition. To address this issue, while simultaneously developing a molecular platform for studying one of the most common Taiwanese reef corals, Seriatopora hystrix, 1,092 cDNA clones were sequenced and characterized. Subsequently, RNA, DNA and protein were extracted sequentially from colonies exposed to elevated (30uC) temperature for 48 hours. From the RNA phase, a heat shock protein-70 (hsp70)-like gene, deemed hsp/c, was identified...
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2011
Lamellodiscus euzeti n. sp. (Monogenea:Diplectanidae) is described from the gills of two sparid fishes, Dentex canariensis (Steindachner) off Senegal and Ivory Coast and D. gibbosus (Rafinesque) off Senegal and Tunisia. The new species belongs to the "ignoratus" group, characterized by a lamellodisc with complete lamellae, a "lyre" shaped male copulatory organ type, and the "ignoratus" sensu stricto subgroup, characterized by a haptor with simple lateral dorsal bars. Lamellodiscus euzeti n. sp can be distinguished from all the congeneric species of the "ignoratus" subgroup by the presence of a prominent protuberance at the base of the curved part of the simple...
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2011
The differential attenuation of visible light (wavelength 400–700 nm) as it travels through the water column confounds the interpretation of remotely sensed imagery acquired over the sea floor. This can be addressed using depth-invariant processing techniques that ratio the radiance values of two wavebands. An evaluation of the performance of different waveband pairs for creating depth-invariant indices of the sea floor is presented. Twenty-eight different band pairs extracted from multispectral Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager (CASI) data are assessed for the creation of depth-invariant indices over the reef profile of Alphonse Atoll in the Seychelles (water depth 0–30 m)....
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2011
A staged approach for the application of linear spectral unmixing techniques to airborne hyperspectral remote sensing data of reef communities of the Al Wajh Barrier, Red Sea, is presented. Quantification of the percentage composition of four different reef components (live coral, dead coral, macroalgae and carbonate sand) contained within the ground sampling distance associated with an individual pixel is demonstrated. In the first stage, multiple discriminant function analysis is applied to spectra collected in situ to define an optimal subset combination of derivative and raw image wavebands for discriminating reef benthos. In the second phase, unmixing is applied to a...
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2011
Lamellodiscus dentexi Aljoshkina, 1984, a gill parasite of Dentex macrophthalmus (Bloch), is redescribed based on new material from the northwest coast of Africa (Senegal and Morocco). Three new species of Lamellodiscus Johnston et Tiegs, 1922 from D. macrophthalmus are described, Lamellodiscus toguebayei sp. n., L. vicinus sp. n., and L. triacies sp. n., all belonging to the “ignoratus” group. They can be distinguished from all other species of this group by the size and shape of male copulatory organ and sclerotised parts of the haptor. Considering the peculiar morphology of the male copulatory organ (long and thin tube) we propose to put together L. dentexi, L. virgula Euzet et Oliver, 1967 and L. obeliae Oliver, 1973 to form the “elongatus” type within the “elegans” group.
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2011
Shallow water coral reefs are found in tropical areas, between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn to a maximum of about 50–75 m depth, in environments with suitable temperatures, salinity, light, nutrients, sediment, hydrodynamics, and seawater carbonate chemistry. Coral reefs are estimated to cover from 284,300 km2 (Spalding et al. 2001) to about 920,000 km2 when associated habitats are included in calculations (Costanza et al. 1997), with 91% of this area in the Indo-Pacific. The Red Sea, which is considered part of the Indo-Pacific region, contains the most biologically diverse reef communities outside of the Southeast Asia coral...