Fertilisation kinetics among common Indo-Pacific broadcast spawning corals with distinct and shared functional traits

Full description

The dataset contains information regarding fertilisation kinetics of four functionally similar and diverse coral taxa common to the Indo-Pacific: Acropora cf. digitifera (Coral Bay, Western Australia), A. cf. tenuis and Coelastrea cf. aspera (Magnetic Island, central Great Barrier Reef), and Platygyra cf. daedalea (Heron Island, southern Great Barrier Reef).
Data was collected by conducting fertilisation experiments where coral sperm and eggs were exposed to one another at varied conditions, manipulating sperm concentration and gamete contact time. A range of biologically relevant sperm concentrations (n = 6-8) were crossed with five contact times (10 seconds, 30 sec, 1 minute, 10 min, 30 min) for each species.
Experimental preparation commenced directly after coral spawning for each species. Egg-sperm bundles from four individuals per species were gathered and separated into their egg and sperm components using a 125-um mesh sieve. Eggs from two donor colonies were separated into treatment groups (n = 100-200 per donor per treatment) and sperm was equally pooled across all four colonies and counted on a haemocytometer, then a serial dilution was performed to obtain a range of sperm concentration treatments. Eggs from each donor colony were exposed to each sperm concentration for an explicit contact time, then were rinsed with a sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) solution to deactivate the sperm and prevent any additional interactions after time had elapsed. Eggs were then rinsed twice with filtered seawater (FSW) and fixed in a buffered formalin solution ~2 hours later.
Eggs from each treatment were scored in the days following spawning using a dissecting microscope to determine the number of fertilised embryos in each treatment, thus the likelihood of successful fertilisation across the range of sperm concentration and contact time treatments.

Coral Bay, WA
Max latitude: - 23.1318
Min latitude: - 23. 1503
Max longitude: 113.7618
Min longitude: 113.7723

Townsville, QLD (from Palms to Magnetic island)
Max latitude: -18.6030
Min latitude: -19.2203
Max longitude: 146.9118
Min longitude: 146.4742

Heron Island, QLD
Max latitude: -23.4463
Min latitude: -23.4429
Max longitude: 151.9210
Min longitude: 151.9103

(WGS 1984)

Access:
Metadata is fully public. Data files will be made fully public once the research has been published.
For special requests, please directly contact the Data Custodian and CC the Project Leader.

Lineage: NA – the dataset is the raw dataset prior to cleaning. It contains all necessary information to conduct cleaning by the user.