Evidence of sexually-produced coral recruitment at Gorgona Island, Eastern Tropical Pacific

Abstract

We rocky examiningpresent sites evidencenatural of Gorgona ofsubstratescoral Island, sexualcoral Colombia, recruitmentjuveniles and ofwhich for at the leasthas first tentypically time species in been the were Colombian lowfoundin theatEastern Pacific. ten outTropical With of 19 data sitesPacific obtained surveyedon coral by during thoroughly reefsscubaand diving explorations performed around the island between 2010-2017; however, no corals were found on settlement plates of five different materials. The two most abundant coral species found as juveniles were Porites panamensis and Pocillopora sp., occurring at mean densities of 5.7 ± 4.7 and 0.07 ± 0.11 colonies m-2 (± SD), respectively, and with mean colony-sizes of 2.3 ± 0.9 cm and 3.5 ± 1.0 cm (± SD), respectively. These results indicate that, even though settlement plates do not seem to be as useful to study coral recruitment in the region as they are elsewhere, coral recruitment derived from the sexual reproduction of a diverse set of species is an active process at Gorgona Island.