Is the nutrition ingested by one Duncan head shared with the colony?

[marymckeown]

Does what one Duncan head ingests provide nutirition for the entire colony? I have a Duncan with about 10 heads. Sometimes when I feed rotifers or mysis its' difficult to feed all heads evenly. I would assume the nutrition is shared but would like someone who knows to clarify what actually happens.

[philosophile]

No. You need to feed each head.... That said... Duncan's really don't need extra feeding. Don't worry about getting every head every time. I feed mine maybe once or twice a week but I don't really try to get every head.

[marymckeown]

So the indiviual heads don't feed the entire colony?

[CoralReeferGal]

I'm going to assume no. I asked this same question about our trumpets, and was told no; each head needs it's own food in order to grow faster. From what I understand, both duncans and trumpets don't really need to be spot fed, but of course the more often you feed, the faster they will grow. We typically feed the heads around the outside of the colony more often, so that they grow out, rather than split in the middle and then we a cluster mess LOL.

[kawicivic]

Duncan's are different than trumpets - many times duncans are connected by tissue. This could be a key difference unfortunately it is pure speculation on my part. Maybe someone could chime in.

[tmz]

I have no idea. I brodacst feed my fish a mix of frozen foods. The duncans grab what they can and do well with it . When I do spray some directly on them( once a week or so, sometimes less) each head is fed.

[afamousjohnson]

I know with my dendros you have to feed everyv head individually from the research I've done imagine duncans feed similar(I don't spot feed my duncans). I used to spot feed and now I don't. I have never spot fed a candycane but I do enter coral food into my system(coral frenzy,etc etc. I also turn all pumps off when feeding except a 750 I have for SB flow I leave on which grabs food that makes it past the fish and spreads it to my ops on the sand.

[tmz]

BTW, the genus, Ducnaopsomia , species axifugia, is in the family dendrophilidae along with denrophylia and turbinaria( sun corals) . The later do require feeding of individual polyps so it seems likely the wisker coral/ duncan would too, although it has much lower heterotrophic needs in view of it's photosyntetic ability.

[coralreefdoc]

Quality information above, as usual, Tom ... :thumbsup:

The general rule of thumb, particularly with autotrophic/photosynthetic corals with low heterotrophic needs, as Tom alluded to earlier, is if there is shared tissue the assimilated nutrients can/will disperse.

[klepto]

In my opinion, Duncanospammia axifugia are capable of sharing nutrition among polyps.

Wijgerde discusses energy transfer and I feel he adresses this question stating;

"Not only are coral polyps able to detect genetically identical clonemates, they also choose to help their injured neighbouring polyps when they are damaged, by translocating nutrients to areas of high demand."

This is in regards to a Lobophyllia corymbosa, which can lack a coenosarc, a trait that Duncans clearly do exhibit. That said, I feel that this 'translocating of nutrients' would be even more likely in a coral that has connected polyps.

http://www.coralscience.org/main/articles/nutrition-6/coral-energy-transfer

[marymckeown]

In my opinion, Duncanospammia axifugia are capable of sharing nutrition among polyps.

Wijgerde discusses energy transfer and I feel he adresses this question stating;

"Not only are coral polyps able to detect genetically identical clonemates, they also choose to help their injured neighbouring polyps when they are damaged, by translocating nutrients to areas of high demand."

This is in regards to a Lobophyllia corymbosa, which can lack a coenosarc, a trait that Duncans clearly do exhibit. That said, I feel that this 'translocating of nutrients' would be even more likely in a coral that has connected polyps.

http://www.coralscience.org/main/articles/nutrition-6/coral-energy-transfer

Thank you Klepto, interesting article.

[marymckeown]

TMZ and Coral Reef Doctor, thank you for providing scientific responses.

[tmz]

In my opinion, Duncanospammia axifugia are capable of sharing nutrition among polyps.

Wijgerde discusses energy transfer and I feel he adresses this question stating;

"Not only are coral polyps able to detect genetically identical clonemates, they also choose to help their injured neighbouring polyps when they are damaged, by translocating nutrients to areas of high demand."

This is in regards to a Lobophyllia corymbosa, which can lack a coenosarc, a trait that Duncans clearly do exhibit. That said, I feel that this 'translocating of nutrients' would be even more likely in a coral that has connected polyps.

http://www.coralscience.org/main/articles/nutrition-6/coral-energy-transfer


That t was a nice link .

Tahnkyou. This part is particularly interesting:

"...They found that polyps only transfer radioactive carbon to isogeneic injured polyps, and not to either isogeneic healthy polyps, allogeneic healthy ones or allogenetic injured ones...."

marymckewon 's question is:

Does what one Duncan head ingests provide nutirition for the entire colony? I have a Duncan with about 10 heads. Sometimes when I feed rotifers or mysis its' difficult to feed all heads evenly

So, while lobophylia cormybossa may share organic carbon with an injured isogenic polyp even in the absence of coensarc tissue the article doesn'ta nswer the question posed. In fact it shows that no transfer of organic carbon ie, nutrition occurs to isogenic healthy polyps. which provides ground for a reasonable inference that they need individual feeding. Further there is no mechanism for the transfer described in the article to suggest it would be somehow enhanced by connective tissue.

So as a practical matter , I recommend feeding duncan heads separatley.
Their cousin's the sun corals and dendros are well known to need individual feeding and I suspect duncans do too.

[philosophile]

They also speculate that the mucus is being transferred between polyps, which could happen in a colony of duncans, but again, that would mean ingestion of one mucus from the other.

From personal experience, I can tell you that the heads that get fed more, grow faster and get bigger than the ones that don't. But that's just anecdotal.

So lets talk a little biology on duncans... Duncans are made up of two parts, the stalk and the polyp head. The stalk is alive, and is covered in mucus. Usually pretty green. It generates skeleton. The polyp head is at the tip of the stalk. It can retract in to the stalk a certain amount... But the rest of the stalk is pretty empty. Fragging a duncan stalk reveals this. So either the duncan is spreading the nutrition through the stalk material, which sometimes doesn't connect with the rest of the colony, and remember it doesn't have any kind of vascular structure, so the nutrition dispersion would be relatively slow, or it doesn't share nutrition with the other polyps. I admit though I'm not a biologist, and so I might be wrong on all sorts of levels here.

[daddy2kids]

IME it takes months for a new Duncan head/polyp to develop enough to feed. Until then, the nutrients must be coming from the heads that are mature enough to feed, don't you think? Also, I have some Duncan heads that are oriented in a way that I cannot target feed them, and they are nearly as large as the heads that I feed often. Yes, I target feed the heads that I can, but there is clearly some transfer of nutrients from head to head.

[glang]

I agree with the last post. My duncan has heads that are growing on the underside and are covered from the light and food falling over the coral, so it stands to reason that they must be getting nutrients somehow since they are growing and look great.

[kurt_n]

Interesting thread. Not sure what the answer is, but I'll offer a counter to the last couple posts. As my Duncan has gotten larger and larger, it will shade the lower branches from both direct light and feeding. Those stalks will eventually shrivel up and die as the tissue on the outside of the skeleton recedes from the rest of the colony's tissue. They do well for a while, but in time they will die off.

On the flip side, having just done a little pruning on some very healthy stalks and cutting through the living part of the tissue, there is definitely something going on inside. I was surprised to see some type of yellow tissue inside the skeleton. Seems logical that nutrients could be carried between heads with what I saw, but I'm just not sure how much interconnectivity there is within the entire colony.

Maybe the answer is both yes and no, depending on the individual colony.

[kawicivic]

Great posts!

[organism]

I'm not sure if they share food, but from personal experience I can tell you that they for sure don't need food to survive and can do just fine on light alone.