Abstract:
The Anthozoans are important components of marine ecosystems.
Among them the stony corals, Scleractinia, are very remarkable and
frame-building animals of coral reefs in tropical zones. The role of
Octocorallia, i.e. soft corals, sea fans and sea pens, in the reef-building
process is also important andthese corals also deserve attention due to
their abundance in marine bottom ecosystems as well as a source of the
pharmacologically important compounds. The study ofOctocorallia
species richness is substantially in the frame of worldwide and local
biodiversity problems. Inrecent years we have found that the
contemporary biodiversity of the soft corals in the central area of the
Vietnam coastal waters essentially exceeds the same in the Indo-
Malayan Centre of Marine Biodiversity (or Coral Triangle). As it was
assumedframingthe last decade investigations, solvingcomplex
problems of the taxonomy, genetic diversity and species-specific
ecology areneeded to trace the possible ways for soft coral dispersal.
