. The Biological bulletin. Biology; Zoology; Biology; Marine Biology. PLEXAURID GORGONIAN REPRODUCTION. March April May June July August 1984 Figure 5. Total number of large eggs (>400 jim) in 20 polyps of three Plexuara A colonies. Colonies were chosen to demonstrate the variability in times of maximum development and release. tent in different months and also differed in which month(s) release occurred. Discussion As in other gorgonians, Plexuara A colony size was an important determinant of reproductive state. Wahle (1983) reports that only Plexaura homomalla colonies that are greater th
. The Biological bulletin. Biology; Zoology; Biology; Marine Biology. PLEXAURID GORGONIAN REPRODUCTION. March April May June July August 1984 Figure 5. Total number of large eggs (>400 jim) in 20 polyps of three Plexuara A colonies. Colonies were chosen to demonstrate the variability in times of maximum development and release. tent in different months and also differed in which month(s) release occurred. Discussion As in other gorgonians, Plexuara A colony size was an important determinant of reproductive state. Wahle (1983) reports that only Plexaura homomalla colonies that are greater than 20 cm in height are reproductive. Our results are similar to Wahle's in that most colonies less than 20 cm in height were not reproductive. Further- more, <20 cm tall colonies were never observed to re- lease eggs. This indicates that either the eggs fail to ma- ture or do so in very small numbers in small colonies. Unlike Wahle's observations, we did find reproductive tissue in some <20 cm colonies and even in some 10 cm colonies. The presence of gametogenesis among these colonies may indicate a smaller size of first reproduction among Plexuara A colonies, error introduced in using colony height to measure size of first reproduction, or effects of the age of the colony. First. Plexuara A may start reproduction at a smaller size than P. homomalla. Size of first reproduction varies among colonial coelen- terates such as alcyonaceans (Benayahu and Loya, 1984) and scleractinians(Szmant. 1986). It is likely that gorgo- nians also will exhibit interspecific variation in this basic life history trait. Second, and perhaps most important is the fact that colony height is an approximate measure of overall colony size for organisms with arborescent growth forms like Plexuara A. Colonies of similar height often vary in the number of branches and thus in total biomass. More precise estimates of size may identify a less variable size of first reproduction. Finally, Plexuara A colon
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