Coralline Algae - Avoidance of Fouling

Avoidance of Fouling

As sessile encrusting organisms, the corallines are prone to overgrowth by other "fouling" algae. The group have many defences to such immuration, most of which depend on waves disturbing their thalli. However, the most relied-upon method involves waiting for herbivores to devour the potential encrusters. This places them in the unusual position of requiring herbivory, rather than benefiting from its avoidance. Many species periodically slough their surface epithallus – and anything attached to it.

Some corallines slough off a surface layer of epithallial cells, which in a few cases may be an antifouling mechanism which serves the same function as enhancing herbivore recruitment. This also affects the community, as many algae recruit on the surface of a sloughing coralline, and are then lost with the surface layer of cells. This can also generate patchiness within the community. The common Indo-Pacific corallines, Neogoniolithon fosliei and Sporolithon ptychoides, slough epithallial cells in continuous sheets which often lie on the surface of the plants.

Not all sloughing serves an antifouling function. Epithallial shedding in most corallines is probably simply a means of getting rid of damaged cells whose metabolic function has become impaired. Morton and his students studied sloughing in the South African intertidal coralline alga, Spongites yendoi, a species which sloughs up to 50% of its thickness twice a year. This deep-layer sloughing, which is energetically costly, does not affect seaweed recruitment when herbivores are removed. The surface of these plants is usually kept clean by herbivores, particularly the pear limpet, Patella cochlear. Sloughing in this case is probably a means of eliminating old reproductive structures and grazer-damaged surface cells, and reducing the likelihood of surface penetration by burrowing organisms.