Okinawa Bioinformatics

# Okinawa Bioinformatics#
In the warming Okinawa Sea, the birth tide of new life is becoming more and more lively.
BenPO participated in night diving just last week and observed a feast of "coral oviposition".

So can’t you see the little coral without diving?
Not exactly. Aquarium is the best place to close the distance between people and the sea.

Okinawa Beauty Aquarium, the second tank is the "Coral Sea Trough", which grows a variety of reef-building corals and soft corals.
Because the coral trough circulates with the sea water in the coral reef in front of the aquarium every day and uses the natural sea water completely, and the design of open trough roof introduces the natural light source-sunshine/moonlight, the water temperature and diurnal variation in the trough basically synchronize with the external environment.
It is also for this reason that the normal reproductive activities of various corals can be observed in the coral trough every summer, and this year is no exception.

Among the various activities of coral reproduction and oviposition, the most spectacular is that some antler corals in Acropora release "sperm bundle" containing sperm and egg cells at night. These sperm-egg bundles will float to the water surface because of their buoyancy. After rupture, they will be fertilized by gametes released by antler corals from other groups, forming fertilized eggs and gradually developing into coral larvae. Coral larvae will sink to the coral reefs to find suitable locations to fix themselves and metamorphose into antler corals.

In order to enable everyone to observe coral’s new life at close range, the Beautiful Seawater Aquarium has set up a "Coral Egg and Larvae Observation Conference" exhibition area at the entrance. It not only has a live exhibition of coral eggs and larvae, but also includes a multi-language brochure in Chinese, introducing coral breeding and coral reproduction in the museum.

The exhibition area will last until June 30. Friends who have the chance to visit Okinawa in June can visit it.~
Coral Reef Ecosystem: Coral NeogenesisPencil lead