Document of bibliographic reference 396805

BibliographicReference record

Type

Bibliographic resource

Type of document

Journal article

BibLvlCode

AS

Title

The stony coral Fimbriaphyllia (Euphyllia) ancora’s reproductive strategy involves a sex change every year

Abstract

A sex change phenomenon was reported in some free-living, non-sessile coral species of the Family Fungiidae. However, there are no reports describing sex change in sessile colonial species. Timing and cellular processes of sex change are also unclear in corals. Here, we report sex change of the colonial coral, Fimbriaphyllia ancora, and its cellular process. Of 26 colonies monitored at Nanwan Bay, southern Taiwan, about 70% changed their sex every year after annual spawning for least 3-4 consecutive years, i.e., colonies that were male two years ago became female last year, and male again this year. The remaining 30% were permanently male or female. Sex-change and non-sex-change colonies grew in close proximity or even side-by-side. No significant differences were found in colony size between sex?change and non-sex-change colonies. Histological analysis showed that, in female-to-male sex change, small oocytes were present up to 3months in some gonads after spawning and disappeared by 5months. This suggests that sex change occurred 4-5 months after spawning. In contrast, in male-to-female sex change, oocytes appeared weeks after sperm release and in most gonads by 3 months, suggesting that male-to-female sex change occurred 0–3 months after sperm release.

Bibliographic citation

Shikina, S.; Tsai, P.-H.; Chiu, Y.-L.; Chang, C.-F. (2024). The stony coral Fimbriaphyllia (Euphyllia) ancora’s reproductive strategy involves a sex change every year. Communications Biology 7(1). https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-024-06799-x

Topic

Marine

Is peer reviewed

true

Access rights

open access

Is accessible for free

true