Wound repair in Pocillopora

•Tissue healing in Pocillopora is evident microscopically from second day after infliction of injury.•Inflammation was not evident during tissue regeneration in Pocillopora.•Unique mode of regeneration through anastomosis of the upper body wall to form gastrovascular canals.

Corals routinely lose tissue due to causes ranging from predation to disease. Tissue healing and regeneration are fundamental to the normal functioning of corals, yet we know little about this process. We described the microscopic morphology of wound repair in Pocillopora damicornis. Tissue was removed by airbrushing fragments from three healthy colonies, and these were monitored daily at the gross and microscopic level for 40 days. Grossly, corals healed by Day 30, but repigmentation was not evident at the end of the study (40 d). On histology, from Day 8 onwards, tissues at the lesion site were microscopically indistinguishable from adjacent normal tissues with evidence of zooxanthellae in gastrodermis. Inflammation was not evident. P. damicornis manifested a unique mode of regeneration involving projections of cell-covered mesoglea from the surface body wall that anastomosed to form gastrovascular canals.

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