ORIENTED INTRA-COLONIAL TRANSPORT OF C-14-LABELED MATERIALS DURING CORAL REGENERATION

Here we document for the first time an oriented intra-colonial translo cation of photosynthetic products towards regenerating areas in 2 scle ractinian corals, Favia favus (n = 5) and Platygyra lamellina (n = 3) in Eilat (Red Sea). C-14 bicarbonate was injected into round stainless -steel cylinders (10 h daylight incubation period) enabling labeling o f a restricted tissue area of 20 cm(2) in each colony center. Three ti ssue lesion sizes (small, intermediate and large) were inflicted simul taneously on each colony at a distance of 10 cm from and at different angles to the labeled area. After 3 wk, tissue and skeletal samples we re taken from various locations on the coral colonies, and C-14 activi ty was determined. In F. favus a significant labeling of tissues was r ecorded in areas bordering the recuperating large lesions and along th e axis connecting these lesions with the labeled centers. This pattern of labeling was not found in the smaller lesions. In P. lamellina C-1 4 incorporation was recorded in the tissues bordering large as well as intermediate sized lesions. The skeletal samples from F. favus showed significant C-14 deposition in areas bordering the large lesions, ind icating the use of translocated C-14 materials for skeletogenesis in l arge lesion regeneration. Our results indicate that C-14 labeled mater ials originating in distant areas of the coral colony are translocated towards large regenerating lesions. Furthermore, the size of the cora l lesion is shown to affect the magnitude of this translocation.