ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROLS ON CORALLITE MORPHOLOGY IN THE REEF CORAL MONTASTRAEA ANNULARIS

摘要: Scleractinian reef-coral species display high phenotypic plasticity in skeletal mor phology. Understanding environmental and physiologic controls on this variation is essential to explaining the distribution abundance of coral as well understanding their susceptibility pollution global climate change. Here we assess corallite morphology genetically determined colonies Montastraea annularis s.s. (Ellis Solander, 1786) by analyzing three-dimensional calical surfaces two-dimensional lite represented transverse thin sections. Samples were collected along gradients seawater depth coastal influence island Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, additionally compared M. two closely related species, franksi (Gregory, 1895), faveolata 1786), from Panama. Significant was found between depths localities geographic regions. Morphologic characters associated with significantly more plastic than preserved While charac ters section successful at classifying three provide a basis for inter preting adaptive significance observed differences these species. High variability well-known characteristic sclerac