Breeding experiments of hermatypic coral Galaxea fascicularis: partial reproductive isolation between colonies of different nematocyst types and enhancement of fertilization success by presence of parental colonies.

The article reports on a study of the breeding of hermatypic coral Galaxea fascicularis and their partial reproductive isolation between colonies of different nematocyst types and enhancement of fertilization success through parental colonies in Okinawa, Japan. It mixed eggs of hermatypic corals with sperm at an appropriate dilution after successful fertilization. It made 12 standard crosses using gametes from 13 females and nine males wherein very low fertilization were observed in two of the crosses. It also founds out that fertilization experiments of Galaxea fascicularis could be performed in the presence of colony fragments.