looking for instances of this sps hybrid

Hi All,

I have been communicating with Steve Tyree (and Bob Fenner via Wet Web Media) about my Tyree LE Idaho Grape Monti, since tiny pieces of it started growing green polyps, after I had scraped and chipped the IG monti off of my liverock to clear real estate (hence open wounds allowing opportunity for foreign DNA to get in).

The conjecture is, that this may well be a unique coral, and that these green polyps are arising out of hybridization with green pocillopora.

I am trying to find other instances of this naturally occurring hybrid, to determine rarity and to compare notes with anyone who has witnessed this hybridization of these two specific corals.

The first coral is a Tyree LE Idaho Grape Montipora Undata. My frag came from John Coppolino who got his parent from Reeffarmers when the coral was first distributed.

The second is (suspected) to be green pocillopora. This is such a common coral that I can't get more specific. I got frags from 2 different WAMAS members, so I am not sure which of them would have been the source of the DNA, and do not know the ancestry.

Please provide information! Thank you!

 

Also, it's possible it might just be a graft. In which case, one color will eventually win.

 

It's not a graft, other wise there would be distinct boundaries and the tissue from which the green polyps are growing, would look like the tissue of the species they came from. As the coral I have grows, the new growth areas still look like IG monti, while the polyps that are growing out of it are still the green polyps.

 

I have seen a purple monti capricornis with green polyps only one time before.

 

Pics?

 

It's tough to say without pics, however, your terminology appears to be incorrect. A hybrid occurs when fertilization occurs via gamets from two different species. Did spawning occur? And is this coral a result of this spawning? If not, it wouldn't be a hybrid. It could be a graft or chimera. However, from your description this didn't sound like the case. Corals can regulate genes due to external cues and environmental influences. It's not odd at all for a coral to change color significantly due to some change in the environment. Often lighting, but could be other factors as well.

Here is a good article on grafts:
Coral Fusion and Grafting by Justin Credabel - Reefkeeping.com

For hybridization see:
Willis et al. 2006 "The Role of Hybridization in the Evolution of Reef Corals"
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.37.091305.110136

 

BTW, what you are describing here is called horizontal gene transfer. It doesn't really seem to occur in multicultural organisms in nature, in the way you are describing, for well understood reasons. Cells are distinct entities and DNA does not travel between them. So, if DNA merges with one cell, it does not replicate to all cells. In the lab, molecular biologists can force it to infect all cells by modifying a retrovirus to infect cells and insert a specific DNA sequence, for example, however this doesn't really "just happen" in nature. It can happen in single cellular organisms, such as bacteria and this is actually common. Corals aren't single cellular organisms though...

 

My buddy Steve Garrett has had 2 corals that contracted green pigments from pocillipora corals. This has happened naturally and not on purpose. I'm sure he would be happy to share his experience with you. He is out of the country right now but will return at the end of the month. his contact info is here.
Garrett's Acropolis

 

For Clarification:
I used the word hybrid as a general term, not restricted to the combination being genetic (didn;t realize that in this field, it is restricted to genetics). There is uncertainty as to just how these two corals got combined.

Grafting is, to the best of my knowledge, when two different corals which, through the lack of aggression, blend together to create a chimera. What I have is a coral with the characteristics of two different species, giving the impression of something that is neither one of them. My coral's new growth areas do not have the tiny lavender polyps of the Idaho grape monti, they have polyps that appear identical to the larger fluorescing green polyps of pocillopora. If it was only the color of the polyps that are different, or only the size, or if these polyps were not growing synchronously with, and on, the monti's new growth areas in absence of the polyps that one would expect, I would have a different view. A free-floating polyp can graft to another species, but if new coral growth comes from them, it would be the same coral as the polyp came from, which would presumably create a chimera.

The new growth areas are describes above - it has the characteristics of two different corals to look like a third. I have read of this happening in nature, as a matter of genetics.

Idaho grape is undata species, not capricornis. It seems a lot of people make that mistake.

My pieces are very tiny, as they are bits that were chipped and scraped off of my main rock structure when I was trying to clear real estate after removing a colony. I have pictures, but they aren't great due to the size of the pieces and a camera that is only 10 megapixels. I'll send updated pictures to Steve when there has been more growth, or when someone with a better camera can take pictures for me, so I can get some more feedback from him.

 

Thanks for the info!

Steve Tyree said that pocillopora polyps (not pieces of coral) have been known to graft to other corals, but I am trying to determine how it would result in a coral with characteristics of different species, rather than a chimera.