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Coral reefs, seagrasses, and mangroves buffer habitats further inland from storms and wave damage as well as participate in a tri-system exchange of mobile fish and invertebrates. Mangroves and seagrasses are critical in regulating sediment, freshwater, and nutrient flows to coral reefs. [136] The diagram immediately below shows locations where ...
A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. [1] Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Coral belongs to the class Anthozoa in the animal phylum Cnidaria, which includes sea anemones and ...
They provide habitats and food for a diversity of marine life comparable to coral reefs. This includes invertebrates like shrimp and crabs, cod and flatfish, marine mammals and birds. They provide refuges for endangered species such as seahorses, turtles, and dugongs. They function as nursery habitats for shrimps, scallops and many commercial ...
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A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. [55] Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes but there are also reefs such as the coral reefs of tropical waters formed by biotic processes dominated by corals and coralline algae.
While it covers only 1.6% of the planet's oceanic area, the region has 76% of all known coral species in the world. As a habitat for 52% of Indo-Pacific reef fishes and 37% of the world's reef fishes, it contains the greatest diversity of coral reef fishes in the world [17] More than 3,000 species of bony fish are distributed over more than 90% of the Coral Triangle.
Built next to a living coral reef on the Waikīkī shoreline, the Waikīkī Aquarium is home to more than 3,500 organisms of 490 species of marine plants and animals. Each year, over 330,000 people visit, and over 30,000 schoolchildren participate in the aquarium's education activities and programs.
It includes the Florida Reef, the only barrier coral reef in North America [1] and the third-largest coral barrier reef in the world. It also has extensive mangrove forest and seagrass fields. The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, designated on December 28, 1990, [2] was the ninth national marine sanctuary to be established.