Related topics: coral reefs
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
New pictures reveal rich Antarctic marine life in area of rapid climate change
Dec 17, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- New photographs of ice fish, octopus, sea pigs, giant sea spiders, rare rays and beautiful basket stars that live in Antarctica’s continental shelf seas are revealed this week by the British ...
New species of coral, sponges found near Hawaii
Dec 15, 2009 |
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(AP) -- New and dramatic species of coral and sponges have been found in the Pacific during deep sea dives near the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, scientists said Monday.
Researchers plan DNA sequencing for entire Pacific island
Dec 02, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- University of Florida researchers are collecting marine invertebrates on the French Polynesian island of Moorea as part of a massive effort to inventory the DNA sequence of every living species ...
Discovery of the Jekyll-and-Hyde factors in 'coral bleaching'
Dec 02, 2009 |
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Scientists are reporting the first identification of substances involved in the Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation that changes harmless marine bacteria into killers that cause "coral bleaching." Their study appears ...
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Web sites aim to survive with hyperlocal focus
Nov 25, 2009 |
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Finding a financially viable way to provide local news is a challenge large metropolitan newspapers are confronting. But a Coral Gables, Fla., Web site is among a few locally with faith it can succeed.
NASA's TRMM satellite sees Tropical Storm Cleo form in southern Indian Ocean
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 08, 2009 |
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The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite captured the birth of Tropical Storm Cleo in the southern Indian Ocean today, December 7.
Nearly 100 new species described by California Academy of Sciences in 2009
Dec 14, 2009 |
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In 2009, researchers at the California Academy of Sciences added 94 new relatives to our family tree. The new species include 65 arthropods, 14 plants, eight fishes, five sea slugs, one coral, and one fossil ...
Fish with attitude: Some like it hot
Dec 03, 2009 |
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Coral reef fish can undergo a personality change in warmer water, according to an intriguing new study suggesting that climate change may make some species more aggressive.
Koalas, penguins at risk of extinction: study
Dec 14, 2009 |
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Climate change threatens the survival of dozens of animal species from the emperor penguin to Australian koalas, according to a report released Monday at the UN climate summit.
Story of 4.5 million-year-old whale unveiled in Huelva
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Dec 15, 2009 |
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In 2006, a team of Spanish and American researchers found the fossil remains of a whale, 4.5 million years old, in Bonares, Huelva. Now they have published, for the first time, the results of the decay and ...
Climate change in Kuwait Bay
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 30, 2009 |
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Since 1985, seawater temperature in Kuwait Bay, northern Arabian Gulf, has increased on average 0.6°C per decade. This is about three times faster than the global average rate reported by the Intergovernmental ...
Past regional cold and warm periods linked to natural climate drivers
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 26, 2009 |
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Intervals of regional warmth and cold in the past are linked to the El Niño phenomenon and the so-called "North Atlantic Oscillation" in the Northern hemisphere's jet stream, according to a team of climate scientists. These ...
Study: Earth's polar ice sheets vulnerable to even moderate global warming
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 16, 2009 |
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A new analysis of the geological record of the Earth's sea level, carried out by scientists at Princeton and Harvard universities and published in the Dec. 16 issue of Nature, employs a novel statistical approa ...
Penn State scientist at center of a storm
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 09, 2009 |
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A few words culled from some hacked e-mails in Britain have generated chaos in the world of climate science -- throwing dark clouds over Pennsylvania State University and stirring up negative publicity for the field that ...
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