Latitudinal variation in monthly-scale reproductive synchrony among Acropora coral assemblages in the Indo-Pacific

Authors

Jessica Bouwmeester, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology; Smithsonian Biology Institute
Alasdair J. Edwards, Newcastle University
James R. Guest, Newcastle University
Andrew G. Bauman, National University of SingaporeFollow
Michael L. Berumen, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Andrew H. Baird, James Cook University

ORCID

0000-0001-9260-2153

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Coral Reefs

ISSN

0722-4028

Publication Date

6-15-2021

Keywords

Marquis index, Multi-species spawning, Phenology, Reproduction, Scleractinia

Abstract

Early research into coral reproductive biology suggested that spawning synchrony was driven by variations in the amplitude of environmental variables that are correlated with latitude, with synchrony predicted to break down at lower latitudes. More recent research has revealed that synchronous spawning, both within and among species, is a feature of all speciose coral assemblages, including equatorial reefs. Nonetheless, considerable variation in reproductive synchrony exists among locations and the hypothesis that the extent of spawning synchrony is correlated with latitude has not been formally tested on a large scale. Here, we use data from 90 sites throughout the Indo-Pacific and a quantitative index of reproductive synchrony applied at a monthly scale to demonstrate that, despite considerable spatial and temporal variation, there is no correlation between latitude and reproductive synchrony. Considering the critical role that successful reproduction plays in the persistence and recovery of coral reefs, research is urgently needed to understand the drivers underpinning variation in reproductive synchrony.

DOI

10.1007/s00338-021-02129-3

Volume

40

First Page

1411

Last Page

1418

Comments

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (XLSX 596 KB)

Supplementary file2 (PDF 432 KB)

Supplementary file3 (PDF 208 KB)

Additional Comments

Financial support was provided by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (AHB), the Singapore National Research Foundation (AGB, MSRDP-P03) and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) baseline research funding (MLB).

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

NSUWorks Citation

Jessica Bouwmeester, Alasdair J. Edwards, James R. Guest, Andrew G. Bauman, Michael L. Berumen, and Andrew H. Baird. 2021. Latitudinal variation in monthly-scale reproductive synchrony among Acropora coral assemblages in the Indo-Pacific .Coral Reefs : 1411 -1418. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facarticles/1257.