The co-ordination of the protective retraction of coral polyps

Abstract

The responses to electrical stimulation of a number of alcyonarian, zoanthid and madreporarian corals are described. All groups studied except gorgonids show extensive coordination over the colony. In Sarcophyton (Alcyonacea) the response is typically local at first but eventually a wave of polyp retraction can be made to spread over the colony. The astraeid corals and the alcyonarian Tubipora have over the whole colony a through-conducting system which has refractory and neuromuscular properties similar to those found in the mesenteries of actinians. In the zoanthid Palythoa successive shocks produce excitation which spreads progressively farther across the colony at each shock for as many as fifty shocks at two-second intervals. The perforate corals Goniopora and Porites respond to a single shock by a co-ordinated retraction of many polyps. Except in Acropora, it is characteristic of the perforate corals studied that stimulation at one point never spreads over the whole colony no matter how many stimuli are applied. The responses of the individual polyps of many corals, including Fungia, are described, and in all there is a similarity to the column, disk and tentacle responses already known in actinians, e.g. Calliactis. The concept of interneural facilitation has been analyzed by use of a working model which shows that the simple theory is inadequate as an explanation of transmission between polyps of certain species because the predicted transmission distances are either too variable or too small compared with the actual distances observed at the first electrical stimulus of the animal. The properties of the co-ordinating systems between the polyps of the various groups of corals have been considered as variations on a common theme, conduction between units which form a network. The various stages from poor co-ordination, through progressive spread at each successive stimulus, to a through-conducting condition have been interpreted as a reflexion of increasing probability of transmission from one all-or-nothing unit of the pathway to the next unit in a population of a large number of units, only a proportion of which may be active at any one time. The units may be interpreted as neurones, as is probable in parts of a single polyp, or as small regions such as polyps within which there is normally through-conduction at the first stimulus.