9603022 Morse This award supports a three year collaborative research project between Dr. Aileen Morse of the Marine Science Institute at the University of California at Santa Barbara and Dr. Makomoto Omori of the Akajima Marine Science Laboratory in Okinawa, Japan. The project will investigate biochemical control of larval settlement and recruitment of an abundant reef-building coral. The major goals of this research are: 1) to determine the extent to which molecular signals and mechanisms similar to those that control larval settlement, metamorphosis and recruitment of Caribbean agariciid corals regulate these centrally important processes in Acropora nasuta, one of the most abundant and widely distributed ecologically important reef-building corals in the Indo-Pacific; and 2) to develop and investigate the potential usefulness of an acroporid- specific "larval flypaper", as a unique tool for field experiments. Their long-term goals are to understand the mechanisms by which chemical signals in the ocean control reproduction, larval dispersal, settlement, metamorphosis, recruitment, gene expression, and the interactions of organisms with other organisms and with the environment. The project brings together the efforts of two major laboratories that have constituted different parts of the process. The Americans have expertise in molecular marine biology, larval settlement and spawning cue biochemistry and molecular mechanisms controlling recruitment. Japanese expertise is in the area of biology and ecology of mass- spawning corals and cultivation of their larvae. Techniques to be developed for the control of spawning and metamorphosis should accelerate research on the ecologically important corals world-wide, and should ppovide an alternate means of production that can reduce the existing pressure of commercial harvesting on natural stocks. Through the exchange of ideas and technology, this project will broaden our base of basic knowledge and pro mote international understanding and cooperation. ***
