Marc Slattery, Haidy N. Kamel, Sridevi Ankisetty, Deborah J. Gochfeld, Cindi A. Hoover, and Robert W. Thacker. 2008. Hybrid vigor in a tropical Pacific soft-coral community. Ecological Monographs 78:423–443.

Appendix A. Soft-coral grid maps and sample provenances.

The location of each soft-coral colony within the eight 30 × 30 m survey grids at Piti Bomb Holes in 1995, are shown in each of the attached sheets. The grids are subdivided into 1-m² quadrats that represent the intersection of two transect lines laid at x and y coordinates along the periphery (labeled 1 through 30, and A through AD). The locations of each soft-coral colony (red: Sinularia maxima, green: S. polydactyla, and blue: hybrid S. maxima x polydacyla) and the sex (male: ♂, female: ♀), occupying each grid, are indicated on these maps. On three maps (Grids 2, 3, and 4) the hybrid had not recruited into the population by 1995, thus the quadrat coordinates for these sampled hybrid colonies, indicated parenthetically on the corresponding provenance sheets, represent subsequent recruitment sites.

Since these soft corals are clonal, colonies might represent individual ramets or distinct genets, and genets are the unit of interest relevant to our study. As the soft-coral colonies spread and fragment they leave a distinct "substrate scar", thus a ramet can be generally distinguished from a genet by visual examination of the substrate between these clones. Allo-recognition assays (= tissue fusion) between putative ramets and between putative genets, based on the presence or absence of substrate scars respectively, confirm the value of using these visual characteristics to distinguish soft coral identity (Slattery unpublished data: n = 13 fused ramets and 9 unfused genets). Based on this criterion, all ramets representing a visually-distinct genet have been outlined on these maps. In addition, isolated colonies were only sampled as unique genets when they were separated by more than three meters since it is highly unlikely that a substrate scar could be completely removed by scouring or other natural processes across this distance.

The sample provenance sheets indicate which 1-m² quadrats were sampled for particular sets of experiments (i.e., chemical fingerprints: Fig. 2; laboratory sedimentation: Fig. 5, Tables 3 and 4; field contact-mediated competitive encounters: Fig. 6; field predation transplants/back-transplants- grids 2 to 8, and non-contact controls- grid 1: Fig. 8; laboratory cross-fertilization experiments: Table 2). Note: replicate hybrid colonies for sclerite assessment (Table 1) and extracts for allelochemical-mediated tissue necrosis (Fig. 7), and feeding deterrence assays (Figs. 9 and 10) were from the hybrid colonies collected for chemical fingerprinting in August 1995.