Cover image: A detached, floating frond of the tropical brown alga Turbinaria ornata in the lagoon of Moorea, French Polynesia. Since 1980, this alga has become increasingly abundant on the reefs surrounding the high volcanic islands of the South Pacific. Morphological plasticity of this alga enables it to produce fronds suited to both calm lagoon habitats and high-energy, wave-dominated forereef sites. Ontogenetic changes in shape, size, buoyancy and tissue properties in this alga contribute to a dispersal mechanism whereby fertile fronds drift between islands and colonize new locations, and it is increasingly found across barrier reefs throughout the region. Photo: H. Stewart. Submitted by Hannah L. Stewart, "The role of spatial and ontogenetic morphological variation in the expansion of the geographic range of the tropical brown alga, Turbinaria ornata."
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