Methods
Porites samples were taken in three sites, two in the Colombian
Caribbean and one in the Pacific between November 2018 and October 2019,
where seven species of Porites were collected, two of them,P. panamensis and P. lobata, in the Pacific, and the other
five, P. astreoides, P. furcata, P. colonensis, P. branneri, andP. porites, in the Atlantic (Figs. 1A and 2B-G). One of the
places in the Caribbean was in San Andres island (12 ° 31’15.45 ”N, 81 °
43’48.60” W) at the SeaFlower Biosphere reserve. The other sampling
point in the Caribbean was in Cartagena specifically in Barú island in a
National Natural Park (PNN Corales del Rosario y San Bernardo, 10 °
10′30 ″ N 75 ° 45′00 ″ W). The sampling site in the Easter Tropical
Pacific corresponded to PNN Gorgona Island (2 ° 58′17 ″ N 78 ° 11′04 ″
W) (Fig. 1A).
Sixty samples were taken from each site, to complete in all 180 samples.
The process used was SCUBA diving in a bathymetric range of 5 m to 40 m
taking 10 m to avoid the collection of clones. The fragments of each
coral were extracted mechanically with the use of a chisel, where part
of the sample was used for taxonomic identification purposes and the
other was preserved in individual tubes with DMSO (0.5 M EDTA; 20% DMSO
(v / v), saturated with NaCl (Dawson, 1998) and stored at -20 °C until
DNA extraction. In the same way, a dry voucher was kept for each sample
obtained and deposited in the Museo de Historia Natural C.J. Marinkelle
of the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. The identification of
the corals of the genus Porites was carried out based on
morphological characters described for each species in different
geographic locations supported by different investigation (Humann y
DeLoach 2002; Prada et al. 2014; Venera-Pontón, Reyes, y Diaz-Pulido
2008; Veron 2000; Von Prahl, Guhl, y Grögl 1979). Research and
collection of specimens were approved by the National Environmental
Licensing Authority (ANLA, Spanish acronym): Collection Framework
Agreement granted to Universidad de los Andes through resolution 1177 of
October 9, 2014 - IBD 0359.