Palys sharing color?

[vaguelyreeflike]

Is it possible for Palythoas to “share” genetic material or colors with other types close by?

For example all of my brown palys looked like the first photo originally, I added greens (last photo) above them on a separate rock, then the browns closest to the greens slowly are turning green over the last 6-8 months or so! Not new heads but the existing ones are changing

 

[BristleWormHater]

I mean is there like a scientist on here?
@ISpeakForTheSeas?
I'm not sure that's possible, but who knows, it's from the ocean.

 

[vaguelyreeflike]

All of these pics were taken today, I still have the OG browns but they are not near or touching the greens and haven’t changed at all. I’ve had the brown palys for years now unchanging, all in the same tank. Greens were added probably a year-ish ago now

 

[vaguelyreeflike]

I mean is there like a scientist on here?
@ISpeakForTheSeas?
I'm not sure that's possible, but who knows, it's from the ocean.

I’ve never heard of it happening and thought it was just lighting or something, but they are slowly turning more green. New heads are brown

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I mean is there like a scientist on here?
@ISpeakForTheSeas?
I'm not sure that's possible, but who knows, it's from the ocean.

It's possible for corals and anemones to share colors via uptake/exchange of zooxanthellae, yes. Corals can uptake zooxanthellae from the water column (to my understanding, this is commonly done by broadcast spawned coral larvae; brooder larvae tend to take zooxanthellae from their parent colony; it doesn't seem to be very common in mature corals), so sometimes - fairly rarely in our aquariums - corals placed near each other may uptake a new strain of zooxanthellae and start changing to the color of their neighbor.

I'm not sure what conditions need to happen for this to take to place, but essentially the conditions would need to be at least somewhat more favorable for the new zooxanthellae so they could gain a foothold despite the coral's current zooxanthellae.

OrionN has used this concept of transferred zooxanthellae to help bleached anemones recover by feeding them a small tentacle from another nem to essentially inject zooxanthellae into the bleached nem.

Anyway, it's not common, but you can see examples of it below (I've seen a few more examples with corals, but I can't remember the threads - sorry); as is mentioned in the thread about zoanthids, though, sometimes the colors change without neighboring corals due to lighting conditions - both methods of change are possible; the lighting changes are more common in aquariums, but there are some clear cut cases of the change being caused by an added neighbor:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/zooxanthellae-transplant-for-bleached-anemones.758507/https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/can-euphyllia-share-zooxanthellae.983863/https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/will-different-zoanthids-share-zooxanthellae.795288/

 

[vaguelyreeflike]

It's possible for corals and anemones to share colors via uptake/exchange of zooxanthellae, yes. Corals can uptake zooxanthellae from the water column (to my understanding, this is commonly done by broadcast spawned coral larvae; brooder larvae tend to take zooxanthellae from their parent colony; it doesn't seem to be very common in mature corals), so sometimes - fairly rarely in our aquariums - corals placed near each other may uptake a new strain of zooxanthellae and start changing to the color of their neighbor.

I'm not sure what conditions need to happen for this to take to place, but essentially the conditions would need to be at least somewhat more favorable for the new zooxanthellae so they could gain a foothold despite the coral's current zooxanthellae.

OrionN has used this concept of transferred zooxanthellae to help bleached anemones recover by feeding them a small tentacle from another nem to essentially inject zooxanthellae into the bleached nem.

Anyway, it's not common, but you can see examples of it below (I've seen a few more examples with corals, but I can't remember the threads - sorry); as is mentioned in the thread about zoanthids, though, sometimes the colors change without neighboring corals due to lighting conditions - both methods of change are possible; the lighting changes are more common in aquariums, but there are some clear cut cases of the change being caused by an added neighbor:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/zooxanthellae-transplant-for-bleached-anemones.758507/https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/can-euphyllia-share-zooxanthellae.983863/https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/will-different-zoanthids-share-zooxanthellae.795288/

Thank you for the links and information! Thats so cool and makes a lot of sense! So now I have “hybrids”, might call ‘em mint chocolates lol