. The ecology of deep and shallow coral reefs : results of a workshop on coral reef ecology held by the American Society of Zoologists, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 1983 . ase INTRODUCTION Reef corals are known to use a variety of mechanisms to compete for limited substrate space in crowded reef environments. Two of the best described are the use of mesenterial filaments (Lang, 1971, 1973; Sheppard, 1979) or of "sweeper tentacles" (Richardson, et al., 1979; Wellington, 1980; Bak , _et _al_., 1982; Chornesky, 1983~J by some corals to damage the tissues of neighboring corals. M
. The ecology of deep and shallow coral reefs : results of a workshop on coral reef ecology held by the American Society of Zoologists, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 1983 . ase INTRODUCTION Reef corals are known to use a variety of mechanisms to compete for limited substrate space in crowded reef environments. Two of the best described are the use of mesenterial filaments (Lang, 1971, 1973; Sheppard, 1979) or of "sweeper tentacles" (Richardson, et al., 1979; Wellington, 1980; Bak , _et _al_., 1982; Chornesky, 1983~J by some corals to damage the tissues of neighboring corals. Mesenterial filaments are normally present in all polyps of every coral. When corals of different species are placed into direct contact, these digestive filaments are deployed rapidly and extracoelenteric digestion of opponent tissues may take place within hours (Lang, 1971, 1973; Sheppard, 1979). The immediate "winner" (, the animal remaining undamaged) in such interactions is generally predictable among various species pairs. Unlike mesenterial filaments, sweeper tentacles (elongate tentacles with specialized cnidae) are found only on certain species of coral (see Lewis and Price, 1975; Bak and Elgershuizen, 1976). Moreover, within these species, sweepers may not be present on all colonies, and, when present, may be erratically distributed over the colony surface. On some corals, sweeper tentacles develop specifically after damage by mesenterial filaments (Wellington, 1980; Bak, e_t al., 1982; Chornesky, 1983) or after contact with recognition XChornesky, 1983) of other corals. In natural interactions, this delayed development, and thus the ability of the coral to utilize sweepers against a neighbor, occurs some time after the interaction has begun (on the order of a month--Wel 1 i ngton, 1980; Bak, ejt al. , 1982; Chornesky, 1983). However, on at least one species of 61
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