Natural coral recovery despite negative population growth.

Demographic processes that ensure the recovery and resilience of marine populations are critical as climate change sends an increasing proportion on a trajectory of decline. Yet for some populations, recovery potential remains high. We conducted annual monitoring over 9 years (2012-2020) to assess the recovery of coral populations belonging to the genus Pocillopora.

Potential PCR amplification bias in identifying complex ecological patterns: Higher species compositional homogeneity revealed in smaller-size coral reef zooplankton by metatranscriptomics.

PCR-based high-throughput sequencing has permitted comprehensive resolution analyses of zooplankton diversity dynamics. However, significant methodological issues still surround analyses of complex bulk community samples, not least as in prevailing PCR-based approaches. Marine drifting animals-zooplankton-play essential ecological roles in the pelagic ecosystem, transferring energy and elements to higher trophic levels, such as fishes, cetaceans and others.

A dataset of sea turtle occurrences around the Taiwan coast.

Background: We describe a dataset of sea turtle sightings around the coast of Taiwan and its islands (Hoh and Fong 2022). This data collection was initiated by TurtleSpot Taiwan, a citizen-science project that collects sea turtle sighting data. This dataset includes 3,515 sighting data dated from March 2010, except most of the data (n = 3,128; 89%) were collected between June 2017 to December 2021.

Utilisation of Oxford Nanopore sequencing to generate six complete gastropod mitochondrial genomes as part of a biodiversity curriculum.

High-throughput sequencing has enabled genome skimming approaches to produce complete mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) for species identification and phylogenomics purposes. In particular, the portable sequencing device from Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) has the potential to facilitate hands-on training from sampling to sequencing and interpretation of mitogenomes. In this study, we present the results from sampling and sequencing of six gastropod mitogenomes (Aplysia argus, Cellana orientalis, Cellana toreuma, Conus ebraeus, Conus miles and Tylothais aculeata) from a graduate level biodiversity course.

Grazing effects of sea urchin Diadema savignyi on algal abundance and coral recruitment processes.

Herbivores control algae and promote coral dominance along coral reefs. However, the majority of previous studies have focused on herbivorous fish. Here we investigated grazing effects of the sea urchin Diadema savignyi on algal abundance and coral recruitment processes.

Shifting in the Dominant Bacterial Group Is Independent of the Dissociation With Coral Symbiont Algae.

The coral-associated are dominant bacteria in the coral holobiont. Their relative abundance usually decreases with heat-induced coral bleaching and is proposed to be positively correlated with Symbiodiniaceae abundance. It remains unclear whether this phenomenon of decreased abundance is caused by temperature stress or a decreased abundance of Symbiodiniaceae.