Hybrid coral hybrid coral

2002/06/17 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Botanika
• Genetika

In the Caribbean Sea, American researchers have discovered and analyzed different coral species. It is usual that several corals of the same species gather eggs and sperms in the same night. From time to time corals of different species are crossed.

Steven Vollmer and Stephen Palumbi, marine biologists at Harvard University, analyze three species of coral. One of them, the prolific Acropora, is considered as a hybrid species, since in reproductive times this species of hybrid coral mixes the eggs of a species with the sperms of a second. This peculiar coral reproduces asexually and lives in a terrible way.

The research of scientists at the University of Harvard serves, above all, to know what to protect depending on the fertility of each coral.