Staghorn 101
What is branching?
Name the three ways in which staghorn corals can reproduce.
What is sexual reproduction, budding, and fragmentation?
The year of the most recent/severe bleaching event.
What is 2023?
The ocean-based, tree-like structures where we attach staghorn corals to grow
What are coral nurseries?
Name an animal that staghorn can serve as a nursery for
What is young fish (snapper, grunts, other baby fish species)?
The scientific name for staghorn
What is Acropora cervicornis?
This type of coral reproduces by releasing egg-sperm bundles.
What is spawners?
Name the disease most affecting Staghorn corals
What is White Band Disease?
Name two activities that we engage in at the ocean nurseries
What is cleaning algae off of the nursery trees, inflating the buoys, fragmenting existing coral, attaching loose fragments, surveying coral health/bleaching?
Name another ecosystem type that staghorn is connected to
What is seagrass beds/mangroves? (Either are acceptable)
The typical color that staghorn is in the ocean
What is yellow, orange, or yellow-brown?
What is a spawner?
The temperature that the ocean water reached in South Eleuthera in summer of 2023
What is 91°F (33°C)?
The process in which we cut pieces from healthy colonies to hang them on the nursery trees
What is fragmentation?
What it means when staghorn acts as a nursery for various animals
What is shelter from predation/breeding ground (where fish reproduce)?
Name three countries where staghorn is found
What is any country in the Caribbean Sea/ some in Central America that border Caribbean Sea?
The type of coral that release planula larva.
What is brooders?
Name the other common threat besides disease and predation.
What are hurricanes/storms?
The number that we assign corals from different source colonies
What is a genotype?
This important coastal protection service of staghorn helps reduce impact of storms and erosion
What is absorbing wave energy?
A coral whose polyps have six-fold symmetry
What is hexacoral?
The months in which staghorn coral reproduces.
What is July & August? (bonus 100 if they said it is highly variable!)
The scary predator eating the staghorn!
What is Coralliophila abbreviata (commonly known as the short coral snail!)?
The collection of fragments from different source colonies living at our CEI lab in case of another severe bleaching event
What is a genome bank?
This staghorn reef feature provides many hiding places and niches for different marine species
What is 3D structural complexity?