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Sex on the seabed

February 14th, 2011

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Naked Oceans Podcast

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, the Naked Oceans podcast gets a little bit naughty this month, with a show dedicated to uncovering some of the unusual mating habits of ocean animals.

For a long time it’s amazed me that sea-dwelling animals have evolved so many ingenious ways to overcome the considerable challenges of getting it on underwater.

Think about it. The oceans are so very enormous, how on earth do pelagic wanderers find each other to mate? It’s alright for whales – they can sing to each other across hundreds of kilometers of open water. But what about jellyfish, adorned as they are with only very simple nervous systems, rudimentary eyes, and most species being more or less at the mercy of drifting currents?

Jellyfish expert Cathy Lucas puts us in the picture of how jellyfish go about making more jellyfish. Turns out it’s quite a complicated business.

The mating habits of some marine animals puts them right in harms way. Spawning aggregations of many species are targeted by fishermen – makes sense to fish in the place where there are lots of fish all hanging out together, with something else on their mind other than avoiding being caught. We hear about the plight of Nassau groupers in the Cayman Islands and a project that is trying to protect dwindling population.

We also get the low down on coral reef sex and find out how reef-building corals get around the problem of being stuck firmly to the seabed.

Tune in, download, enjoy

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