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A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. ... When alive, corals are colonies ... which includes the shells of old or dead ...
Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton. A coral "group" is a colony of very many genetically identical polyps. Each polyp is a sac-like animal typically only a few millimeters in diameter and a few centimeters in height.
In the five reefs the team visited, they did see some wild coral alive and well, Lesneski said. Brain or boulder coral seemed to do better, but still had large amounts of death, she said.
A structural equation model spanning the Caribbean evinced versatility in reef fish, showing they associated with rugosity without regard for whether the coral was alive or dead. However, some declines due to stony coral tissue loss disease were still projected by the model, especially due to coral die-offs and loss of rugosity. [8]
The name sometimes leads to misunderstandings, as the "live rock" itself is not actually alive, but rather is simply made from the aragonite skeletons of long dead corals, or other calcareous organisms, which in the ocean form the majority of coral reefs.
South Florida researchers trying to prevent predatory fish from devouring laboratory-grown coral are grasping at biodegradable straws in an effort to restore what some call the rainforest of the sea.
The most common way to tell if a coral is healthy is by looking at its coloration. A dead or unhealthy coral will be bleached, which means they have 40%-50% or more of their pigmentation missing. [7] Some coral diseases take the form of a narrow band of diseased tissue separating the living tissue from the exposed skeleton.
Other common species of hard coral found on the Florida Reef include Ivory Bush Coral (Oculina diffusa), which is the dominant coral in the patch reefs along the Florida coast north of the Florida Keys, staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis), lettuce coral (Agaricia agaricites), grooved brain coral (Diploria labyrinthiformis), boulder star coral ...