Collection, fertilization, and rearing of Montipora capitata spawned gametes during the July 2020 spawning at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology in collaboration with C. Drury and J. Hancock in the Gates Coral Lab.

Activities

• Gates Lab collected gametes by scooping from the water at approx. 2100 at Reef 13 in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, Hawaii. Gametes were collected as part of a large experiment and a subset of these gametes will be used for this early life history work described in this notebook category. Montipora capitata is a gonochoristic broadcast spawning, vertically-transmitting coral species that is abundant in Kaneohe Bay. Collection of wild released bundles allowed for gamete collection representative of the natural spawning population.

• After collection, bundles were transported to the laboratory where egg and sperm were separated and respectively pooled after natural breakage of the bundles. Pooled egg and sperm were allowed to fertilize for approximately 60 minutes in 50mL falcon tubes at approximately 27.5°C. Following fertilization, embryos were added to 15L conical rearing vessels and were washed to remove sperm. Conicals were supplied with flow-through 1um filtered seawater at ambient temperature. Throughout development, embryos were gently stirred and debris or dead material was removed hourly.

Sampling and data collection are detailed in additional notebook entries.