The few papers that I have read that separate the different types of P have all indicated that the host prefers the poly/meta since it can store it for later and use some of the other things that are bound as trash cans to export waste from the host. Next is organic P and then ortho. This really sucks since it is hard to search for since poly, meta, complex and a few other words are used like synonyms - even harder if the articles need/are translated.
To your point, we probably don't know much and who knows which is right and there are not many of these papers.
My gut tells me that since ortho is the last stop for P and that people can easily test for it that some might be assuming too much. The assumption all along is that plankton is the missing link in the wild where ortho has very low numbers, but many studies have shown that most of the coral that we keep are not great at catching zooplankton (some are really good at it which gets overgeneralized into "coral.") The missing link could be other type of P and it seems not well enough studied. The marine biologist from the coral sea that we met said that there are not the nightly swells of plankton like Veron has written about in other parts of the world, nor are the acropora reefs close enough to land to have terrestrial help. The only abundant thing is fish and inverts that eat the algae near the acropora reefs.
To your point, we probably don't know much and who knows which is right and there are not many of these papers.
My gut tells me that since ortho is the last stop for P and that people can easily test for it that some might be assuming too much. The assumption all along is that plankton is the missing link in the wild where ortho has very low numbers, but many studies have shown that most of the coral that we keep are not great at catching zooplankton (some are really good at it which gets overgeneralized into "coral.") The missing link could be other type of P and it seems not well enough studied. The marine biologist from the coral sea that we met said that there are not the nightly swells of plankton like Veron has written about in other parts of the world, nor are the acropora reefs close enough to land to have terrestrial help. The only abundant thing is fish and inverts that eat the algae near the acropora reefs.
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