Scientists combine, organize 40 years worth of data on coral spawning
Jan. 29 (UPI) -- For the first time, scientists gathered and organized 40 years worth of coral spawning data in a single place, promising new insights into the coral reproduction process. The data collection process involved 90 authors from 60 institutions in 20 countries. Advertisement The scope of the assembled data allowed scientists to highlight differences in the timing and geographical variation of coral spawning. Scientists have already begun using the data -- published Friday in the Nature journal Scientific Data -- to tease out the influence of various environmental factors, like temperature and sunlight, on the spawning patterns of different coral species. The breadth of the new data set, called the Coral Spawning Database, features observations dating back to 1978, allowing sc...
