Corals are sessile animals that form the basis for some of the most diverse marine ecosystems on the planet. Being constrained to one place for the majority of their life, sessile marine invertebrates cannot escape should conditions become unfavorable. To solve this problem, corals have a biphasic lifecycle with a motile larval stage that can disperse and conquer new habitats. How coral larvae disperse and subsequently identify a suitable habitat remains enigmatic in most species. Lophelia Pertusa is a framework-forming cold-water coral with a global distribution and important ecosystem function that can serve as a study object for these questions, due to its accessibility here in the Trondheimsfjorden and its slow larval development.
The ongoing project is pioneering investigations into the mechanistic basis of the dispersal and settlement phase of the coral larvae. We aim to understand how the larvae change over the course of development, to fulfill stage specific needs, such as to disperse away from the parental colony – which is believed to be a largely passive process, and the subsequent phase in which the animal becomes “competent” to recognize specific, suitable habitats and settle to form a new sessile colony- which is believed to be a mainly active process. To achieve these goals, we study the changes in behavior, anatomy and molecular composition of the animals in different developmental stages to identify stage specific sensory modalities and effector systems that enable the animal to successfully master this phase of its lifecycle.
The project is producing fundamental knowledge about coral larval dispersal and habitat selection. Such knowledge is urgently required for us to understand which impact environmental changes have on this central process.
