Corals are marine organisms that reproduce by spawning. Tiny pink balls seen in this movie are coral gametes (unfertilized eggs and sperm called bundles) released into the ocean. Around Okinawa area, the spawning takes place once a year between May and June over a period of one to several nights around a full moon. In the world's first successful decoding of the coral Acropora digitifera genome by the OIST Marine Genomics Unit, researchers collected sperms and extracted genomic DNA from a single Acropora digitifera before analyzing data generated by next-generation sequencers at OIST.
Movie by Dr. Chuya Shinzato, OIST Marine Genomics Unit
For more information, go to oist.jp/en/press-room/press-releases/150/1047-pr-first-coral-genome.html