Assessment of marine litter interactions with urban coral reefs in Okinawa, Japan.

This study assessed different reef zones (lagoon, reef crest, reef slope) in three urban locations around Okinawa Island (Mizugama, Ginowan, Sunabe) and two marine protected areas around nearby Aka Island (Hizushi, Sakubaru) for marine litter pollution and litter interactions with reef organisms. A total reef area of 2250 m was surveyed by scuba diving, and 46 marine litter items were recorded. Litter density ranged from 0.

Abundance and distribution of marine litter on the beaches of Okinawa Island, Japan.

This study evaluated the distribution and abundance of marine litter on 30 beaches around Okinawa Island, Japan. Beach quality indices and multivariate statistical analyses were used to assess the quality of the beaches and their pollution patterns. A total of 11,626 items weighing 513.

Sexual Reproduction in and (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Zoanthidae) in Southern Japan.

Among family Zoanthidae (Anthozoa: Hexacorallia: Zoantharia), and are widespread benthos on coral reefs, but the reproductive biology of both genera is generally unknown. Accordingly, sexual reproduction of two Zoanthidae species in Japan, in Okinawa, and in Okinawa and Kochi, was investigated by annual sampling. Between 2012 and 2013, polyps of tagged colonies of and were sampled monthly, and gonads in mesenteries were examined under a stereomicroscope.

An Indo-Pacific coral spawning database.

The discovery of multi-species synchronous spawning of scleractinian corals on the Great Barrier Reef in the 1980s stimulated an extraordinary effort to document spawning times in other parts of the globe. Unfortunately, most of these data remain unpublished which limits our understanding of regional and global reproductive patterns. The Coral Spawning Database (CSD) collates much of these disparate data into a single place.

Gametogenesis and Inter-annual Variability in the Spawning Pattern of in Northwestern Philippines.

is a fast-growing tabular coral that dominates the shallow water coral assemblage in the Magsaysay reef at the Bolinao-Anda Reef Complex (BARC), northwestern Philippines. The timing of gamete development was investigated for through dissection and histological analyses of coral fragments that were collected monthly from February 2014 to April 2015 from the 22 tagged colonies. The spawning time was identified by the presence of oocytes in the sampled colonies through rapid sampling from January to March 2014, 2015 and 2016.