Date: 1 March 2010
Location: Kusu Island
A short low tide trip... While Lynette was checking up on her seawall tiles, she was really excited by the transitional changes in algae composition. haha.. Glad to see this change so quickly...
Anyway, before the tides came up, I took a photo of the coral reefs outside the seawall... The reef looks tiny from the photo, but it is really amazingly rich... Hopefully I will have another chance to look at Kusu...
Anyway, I came across purple spotted Porites... I did a google search and found out that it could be a disease! Gosh! This disease is known as the Porites Purple Ring Disease in the Indo-Pacific region. These purple spots represent the 'death zones' in the coral and soon it will be colonized by algae tufts.
Oh dear me! I spotted a whole coral rubble of Porites with such purple spots. This purple discoloration is also thought to be a response of the coral to stress or injury... Judging by the numerous number of purple sports, I would think the corals are stressed? Though I'm not too sure what could have affected the Porites... Hopefully the corals will get well soon....
Fortunately, the other corals like Heliopora, Goniopora and this Faviids here seem to be doing well and looking good!
I even spotted bird trails on the sand! It appears to have visited the shore earlier... A rather big bird!
Lastly, after a long search of every seaweed... Here's the little sea slug (Costasiella sp.)...
Hopefully you guys have caught the video of the slug moving! Also, learnt about the Porites Purple Ring Disease! See you till the next trip...
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