All in capital letters. Scientific names should be in italics. At the end of the abstract, leave one line and write four keywords for the abstract ,the session you want to give your presentation, and if it will be an oral presentation or a poster. Please Also let us know if you would like to co-chair a session. Department of Marine Sciences, U. of Puerto Rico.
Corals can reproduce asexually by at least five described strategies.
Only fragmentation and asexual larvae have been reported for the Caribbean. A novel strategy of asexual reproduction was observed in massive colonies of the genera Diploria and Dendrogyra in the Caribbean. These species produce asexual buds which develop as soft-tissue outgrowths on the ridges, and deposit a well organized skeleton which is not connected to the parent colony. Some ecological characteristics were assessed by band transects, counts of number of gemmae per colony, depth distribution, etc. This strategy could have evolved as a response to the environmental instability of shallow reef habitats, and may explain the dominance of Diploria in these habitats.