Coral
hideAlcyonaria Alcyonacea Helioporacea Zoantharia Antipatharia Corallimorpharia Scleractinia Zoanthidea See Anthozoa for details
Corals are marine organisms from the class Anthozoa and exist as small sea anemone-like polyps, typically in colonies of many identical individuals. The group includes the important reef builders that are found in tropical oceans, which secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.
A coral "head", commonly perceived to be a single organism, is formed from myriads of individual but genetically identical polyps, each polyp only a few millimeters in diameter. Over thousands of generations, the polyps lay down a skeleton that is characteristic of their species. An individual head of coral grows by asexual reproduction of the individual polyps. Corals also breed sexually by spawning, with corals of the same species releasing gametes simultaneously over a period of one to several nights around a full moon.
Although corals can catch small fish and animals such as plankton using stinging cells on their tentacles, these animals obtain most of their nutrients from photosynthetic unicellular algae called zooxanthellae. Consequently, most corals depend on sunlight and grow in clear and shallow water, typically at depths shallower than 60 m (200 ft). These corals can be major contributors to the physical structure of the coral reefs that develop in tropical and subtropical waters, such as the enormous Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Queensland, Australia. Other corals do not have associated algae and can live in much deeper water, with the cold-water genus Lophelia surviving as deep as 3000 m. Examples of these can be found living on the Darwin Mounds located north-west of Cape Wrath, Scotland. Corals have also been found off the coast of Washington State and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.
Corals coordinate behaviour by communicating with each other.
For more information about Coral, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with coral
Red Sea coral seen to feed on jellyfish
Nov 17, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Corals depends on the products of photosynthetic algae for most of their food, but they also eat tiny plankton. Now, for the first time, there is evidence of a coral eating jellyfish.
Sponges recycle carbon to give life to coral reefs
Nov 13, 2009 |
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Coral reefs support some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, yet they thrive in a marine desert. So how do reefs sustain their thriving populations?
Australian scientists call for urgent 'global cooling' to save coral reefs
Nov 09, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Australian marine scientists have issued an urgent call for massive and rapid worldwide cuts in carbon emissions, deep enough to prevent atmospheric CO2 levels rising to 450 parts per million (ppm).
Caribbean, Gulf spared widespread coral damage
Nov 06, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Lower-than-feared sea temperatures this summer gave a break to fragile coral reefs across the Caribbean and the central Gulf of Mexico that were damaged in recent years, scientists said Thursday.
Coral reefs inspire rare consensus -- just save them
Nov 05, 2009 |
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One of the first set of studies to examine what tourists and recreation enthusiasts actually think about coral reef ecosystems suggests they are a rare exception to controversies over human use versus environmental ...
Calm before the spawn: Climate change and coral spawning
Nov 04, 2009 |
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What's the point of setting up marine reserves to protect coral reefs from pollution, ship groundings and overfishing if climate change could cause far more damage? A study published this week in London in Proceedings of ...
The White Stuff: Marine Lab Team Seeks to Understand Coral Bleaching
Oct 20, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- With technology similar to that used by physicians to perform magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, researchers from six institutions -- including the National Institute of Standards and ...
Corals 'could starve in high CO2'
Oct 05, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- As human activity pumps more and more carbon into the atmosphere, a new threat has emerged to the world's coral reefs - starvation.
Coral bleaching increases chances of coral disease
Oct 01, 2009 |
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Mass coral bleaching has devastated coral colonies around the world for almost three decades. Now scientists have found that bleaching can make corals more susceptible to disease and, in turn, coral disease ...
Combining sun, sand and science in the Bahamas
Sep 29, 2009 |
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It is well known that people from all over the world come to the Bahamas to enjoy the pristine waters, spectacular coral reefs and great fishing. Tourism produces approximately 55 % of the gross domestic product ...
New NASA Image Shows Extent of Station Fire Burn
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Sep 09, 2009 |
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On September 6, 2009, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite captured this simulated natural color image of the Station fire, burning ...
Hawaii researchers explore previously unseen coral
Sep 09, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Scientists over the past month explored coral reefs in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands that until recently were considered too deep for scuba divers to reach.
Great Barrier Reef under serious threat: report
Sep 02, 2009 |
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Australia's Great Barrier Reef is in serious jeopardy as global warming and chemical runoff threaten to kill marine species and cause serious outbreaks of disease, a report warned Wednesday.
Protection plan deep-sea coral reefs considered
Aug 18, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Deep beneath the crystalline blue surface of the Atlantic Ocean off the southeastern U.S. lies a virtual rain forest of coral reefs so expansive the network is believed to be the world's largest.
Venomous sea snakes play heads or tails with their predators
Aug 06, 2009 |
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In a deadly game of heads or tails venomous sea snakes in the Pacific and Indian Oceans deceive their predators into believing they have two heads, claims research published today in Marine Ecology.
