Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
The free-living mushroom coral Polyphyllia novaehiberniae (Lesson, 1831) is known to occur in the West Pacific and is distinguished from its only congener, P. talpina (Lamarck, 1801), by a thinner and more fragile coral skeleton, and longer, more parallel arranged septa (Hoeksema 1989). During a survey in Northern New Caledonia in 2019, a 12-m2 aggregation of P. novaehiberniae was observed on a sandy reef flat 40 m away from the shoreline (20° 17′ 55.55″ S; 164° 5′ 0.73″ E) at 1.5-m depth at low tide (Fig.1a). This dense aggregation consisted of individuals of various sizes and growth forms, partly overtopping each other. No other individuals were observed within a radius of at least 100 m.
While this type of mushroom coral field is usually exclusively derived from either asexual reproduction (Hoeksema and Gittenberger 2010) or sexual reproduction (Hoeksema and Benzoni 2013), this aggregation resulted from a combination of reproduction mechanisms. Typical elongated individuals showed no regenerated fractures and were derived from sexual reproduction (Fig.1b). Among the asexually reproduced individuals, round ones were formed around regenerating fragments (Fig.1c), while star-shaped specimens (Fig.1b, c) were derived from several polyps that had fused together when they were still asexually reproduced buds regenerating from a shared attached stalk, as previously observed in other mushroom coral species (Hoeksema 1989, Hoeksema and Yeemin 2011). This situation is exceptional since monospecific aggregations of free-living fungiids have never been reported as a result of a mix of three reproduction mechanisms: (1) sexual production through planulae settlement and coral detachment, (2) asexual production by fragmentation, and (3) budding of juveniles that had regenerated from previously vacated stalks (Hoeksema 1989: Fig. 42a–f, m, n, h–j). This situation is even more special, since monospecific aggregations of mushroom corals are relatively rare compared with those consisting of multiple species (Hoeksema and Matthews 2011, Hoeksema and Benzoni 2013).
References
Hoeksema BW (1989) Taxonomy, phylogeny and biogeography of mushroom corals (Scleractinia: Fungiidae). Zool Verh Leiden 254:1–295
Hoeksema BW, Benzoni F (2013) Multispecies aggregations of mushroom corals in the Gambier Islands, French Polynesia. Coral Reefs 32:1041
Hoeksema BW, Gittenberger A (2010) High densities of mushroom coral fragments at West Halmahera, Indonesia. Coral Reefs 29:691
Hoeksema BW, Matthews JL (2011) Contrasting bleaching patterns in mushroom coral assemblages at Koh Tao, Gulf of Thailand. Coral Reefs 30:95
Hoeksema BW, Yeemin T (2011) Late detachment conceals serial budding by the free-living coral Fungia fungites in the Inner Gulf of Thailand. Coral Reefs 30:975
Acknowledgments
The survey was sponsored by Société Le Nickel in New Caledonia. We thank Dr. BW Hoeksema for his advice.
Funding
The survey was sponsored by Société Le Nickel in New Caledonia.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Ethical approval
No animal testing was performed during this study.
Sampling and field studies
All necessary permits for sampling and observational field studies have been obtained by the authors from the competent authorities and are mentioned in the acknowledgements, if applicable. The study is compliant with CBD and Nagoya protocols.
Author Contribution
TH and PL conceived and designed research. TH and PL sampled and analysed data. TH wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.
Additional information
Communicated by L. Menzel
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Heintz, T., Laboute, P. A monospecific aggregation of free-living mushroom corals derived from asexual and sexual reproduction in New Caledonia. Mar. Biodivers. 50, 13 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-019-01031-0
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-019-01031-0