Journal of Tropical Oceanography ›› 2011, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (2): 39-45.doi: 10.11978/j.issn.1009-5470.2011.02.039cstr: 32234.14.j.issn.1009-5470.2011.02.039

• Coral Reefs • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Seasonal patterns of densities of symbiotic zooxanthellae in scleractinian corals from Daya Bay, northern South China Sea, and relation to coral bleaching

LI Shu, YU Ke-fu, CHEN Tian-ran, SHI Qi, CHEN Te-gu   

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Marginal Sea Geology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, CAS, Guangzhou 510301, China
  • Received:2009-12-04 Revised:2010-01-06 Online:2011-05-06 Published:2011-05-04
  • About author:李淑(1980—), 女, 安徽省阜南县人, 博士, 主要从事珊瑚礁环境记录及生态响应研究。E-mail: lishucoral@gmail.com
  • Supported by:

    中国科学院战略性先导科技专项(XDA05080300); 国家自然科学基金项目(40830852、41025007); 国家重点基础研究发展计划项目(2007CB815905); 国家科技支撑计划项目(2006BAB19B03); 中国科学院边缘海地质重点实验室开放研究基金项目(MSGL09-01)

Abstract:

The densities of symbiotic zooxanthellae from 170 coral samples (with twenty-three species, thirteen genus, and eight families) collected during different seasons in Daya Bay, northern South China Sea, were analyzed in order to investigate seasonal variation of zooxanthellae density and its relationship to coral bleaching. The results showed that the density of zooxanthellae in all coral species had significant seasonal characters, with lower density in summer and proximately 2-fold higher density in winter. Coral symbiotic zooxanthellae density was mainly affected by seasonal fluctuation of sea surface temperature (SST) and solar radiation. It was speculated that coral bleaching (hot bleaching in summer) be the cause of the appearance features of coral when zooxanthellae density was reduced to a certain lower threshold, whereas coral cold bleach-ing happened in winter was associated with mortality that corals were directly killed by extremely low SST. High levels of zooxanthellae density in winter probably play an important role in protecting coral from low SST stress.

Key words: scleractinian coral, zooxanthellae, density, seasonal pattern, coral bleaching, Daya Bay