Pulsing Coral

Pulsing Coral (Unomia stolonifera)

Description:

Photo Courtesy of Joanne Hayag, DoD

  • Pinkish-white, long-tentacled soft coral
  • Called pulsing coral for its dance-like movement underwater
  • Branching stalk with unclustered polyps growing along (Benayahu et al. 2021)

Habitat:

  • 0.5 to 20 m depths (Ruiz-Allais et al. 2021)
  • Can grow on both hard (rock, coral) and soft substrates (sediment) (Ruiz-Allais et al. 2014; Ruiz-Allais et al. 2021)

Impacts & Concern:

  • Overgrows reefs, including stony corals and seagrass beds, with the potential to decrease fish stocks (Ruiz-Allais et al. 2021)
  • Grows quickly, can easily propagate by fragmentation, and attaches to floating debris 
  • May be able to attach to vessel hulls
  • Has a strong rotten fish smell that can spread to the surrounding reef 
  • No known natural predators (Ruiz-Allais et al. 2021)

Introduction:

  • Likely an aquarium dumping or release
  • First found in Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in 2020. Now covers 82 acres in Pearl Harbor, including overgrowing colonies of native stony corals 
  • Invasive in Venezuela as a result of aquarium dumping (Ruiz-Allais et al. 2021), where it has impacted over 60 miles of reef

Distribution in Hawaiʻi:

Reported distribution of Unomia stolonifera in the Main Hawaiian Islands

  • Kauai: Not documented
  • Oʻahu: Pearl Harbor*
  • Molokai: Not documented
  • Lanai: Not documented
  • Maui: Not documented
  • Big Island: Not documented

*U. stolonifera is not found anywhere else in the United States currently

Related AIS Team Management Projects:

  • AIS is collaborating with CGAPS, DoD, Bishop Museum, USFWS, NOAA, UH, and colleagues from DAR as a part of the Hawaiʻi Invasive Octocorals Working Group on the U. stolonifera infestation within Pearl Harbor

News:

Regulations:

  • Restricted for private and commercial use including for research by universities or government agencies, exhibition in municipal zoos or government-affiliated aquariums, for other institutions for medical or scientific purposes (§4-71-6.5) 
  • Does not include individual possession of an animal as a pet

References:

  • Benayahu, Y., van Ofwegen, L., Ruiz-Allais, J., & McFadden, C. (2021). Revisiting the type of Cespitularia stolonifera Gohar, 1938 leads to the description of a new genus and a species of the family Xeniidae (Octocorallia, Alcyonacea). Zootaxa, 4964(2). 330-344. 10.11646/zootaxa.4964.2.5
  • Ruiz-Allais, J., Amaro, M.E., McFadden, C., & Halasz, A. (2014). The first incidence of an alien soft coral of the family Xeniidae in the Caribbean, an invasion in eastern Venezuelan coral communities. Coral Reefs, 33(2). 287-287. 10.1007/s00338-013-1122-1
  • Ruiz-Allais, J.,  Benayahu, Y. & Lasso-Alcalá, O. (2021). The invasive octocoral Unomia stolonifera (Alcyonacea, Xeniidae) is dominating the benthos in the Southeastern Caribbean Sea. Memoria, 79. 63-80. 10.5281/zenodo.4784709