Banyan Tree Maldives Vabbinfaru . Genera of Corals Transplanted Onto Vabbinfaru Lotus
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Genera of Corals Transplanted Onto Vabbinfaru Lotus
Genera of Corals Transplanted Onto Vabbinfaru Lotus Roughly about 100 corals have been placed on the Vabbinfaru Lotus so far. The plan is to include all local coral species that can be found in the immediate vicinity of the island reef. Coral identification of the species requires in most cases microscopic examination of the dead skeleton. As we have taken no samples for identification purposes, we identify the different corals by visual inspection to genus only. Most genera only have one or a handful of species, but some have many, up to hundreds in the case of Acropora. As our purpose is to grow as many types of corals as fast as possible, detailed identification to species level will have to wait until the project matures.
We provide a list of the genera that have been transplanted so far. These include 33 of the roughly 50 genera known to the Maldives according to "Corals of the World" (Veron 2000). The total may be higher because many of the pieces transplanted have small colonies or encrusting colonies hidden in cracks that were not noted or could not be identified. The listing specifies whether one, several or many different species of each genus have been transplanted. Since almost all Acropora colonies found are young corals that have not yet assumed their adult forms, it is virtually impossible to identify them at this stage.
