Coral mortality, recovery and reef degradation at Mexico Rocks Patch Reef Complex, Northern Belize, Central America: 1995–1997

Abstract

This volume is organized, as was the Seventh International Conference on Coelenterate Biology, around six themes. All but one of the contribu- tions on neurobiology were part of a symposium on that subject. Some of the contributions on Reproduction, Development, and Life Cycles were part of the symposium on Axial Patterning. Pio- neers in Coelenterate Biology was the subject of a special session. Contributed papers organized around the theme of Ecology included those on Coral Reefs, which constituted the 2003 North American meeting of the International Society for Reef Studies (ISRS). The other two themes were Cnidae, and Taxonomy and Systematics. Three of the five presentations made in the session on Pioneers in Coelenterate Biology are published here. They provide a wonderful glimpse into the world of our science from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century. Mary Arai de- scribes the career of her countryman Fraser. Dale Calder’s account shows that having an ICCB7 in the middle of North America is not so strange, following as it does in the tradition of Nutting. And George Mackie’s vindication of Louis Agas- siz’s observations provide an ideal segue to the Symposium on the Neuroanatomy and Neuro- physiology of Coelenterates. The symposium has its own introduction, which summarizes the contents of the 15 papers presented in it, and highlights the variability in coelenterates that makes them so interesting and challenging to study. The sine qua non of cnidari- ans, cnidae, continue to provide grist for our re- search mill. A theme of two of the papers about them in this volume is also variability – its extent in species and individuals. Other techniques ap- plied to sorting out cnidarians and their relation- ships constitute the section on Taxonomy and Systematics. They range from x-rays to molecules, and show there is no substitute for the time-hon- ored and time-consuming practice of detailed observation. Five of the 13 presentations in the symposium, plus one that one was not given as part of the Axial Patterning symposium, constitute that section. Papers deal with pattern formation both within individuals and in the colonies that many of our marvelously varied animals form. Attention to detail is also evident in the closely- related section on Reproduction, Development, and Life Cycles. All four classes of Cnidaria are represented among those 11 papers; three of them deal with the seldom-studied Cubozoa. Martin- dale’s plenary address and Boero’s banquet talk (neither of which is published in this volume) converged on the idea that cnidarians are, deep down, bilateral and triploblastic, a theme that was echoed in some of developmental papers in the volume. Of the presentations on Coral Reefs that ex- tended through much of a day and a half, eight are published here. As is true of reefs themselves, the theme of variability is very much in evidence. As a sad sign of the times, half of them deal with effects of stress in the animals or detecting stress in the environment. The rest of the papers concerning Ecology run the gamut from freshwater to the deep sea, and include the only plenary address in the volume, Haddock’s reflections on research on planktonic coelenterates. The organizers of ICCB7 were repeatedly challenged about using the term ‘coelenterate.’ The reason for doing so is two-fold: for continuity of a tradition (see history below) and for inclusiveness, as I have just used it, to cover ctenophores (about which there were several presentations) as well as cnidarians.