Brooding and parthenogenesis enhance the success of the coral Porites astreoides relative to Orbicella annularis.

Abstract excerpt

The abundance of many Caribbean corals has declined over the past few decades, yet now Porites astreoides is more common on many shallow reefs than in the 1980s and shows evidence of local adaptation. We compare the small-scale (1-8000 m) genetic structure of this brooding species and the broadcasting coral Orbicella annularis on reefs (<14 m depth) in St. John, US Virgin Islands, to examine how larval dispersal...

Topics

• Animals
• Anthozoa
• Parthenogenesis
• Coral Reefs
• Larva
• Reproduction
• Genetic Variation