Coral reefs begin to form when free-swimming coral larvae attach to submerged rocks or other hard surfaces along the edges of islands or continents. As the corals grow and expand, reefs take on one of three major characteristic structures — fringing, barrier or atoll.
Fish, corals, lobsters, clams, seahorses, sponges, and sea turtles are only a few of the thousands of creatures that rely on reefs for their survival.
Cnidaria have important ecological roles as reef structure builders, and as predators and prey in planktonic and benthic ecosystems.
At night, coral polyps come out of their skeletons to feed, stretching their long, stinging tentacles to capture critters that are floating by. Prey are pulled into the polyps' mouths and digested in their stomachs.
Algae belonging to the group known as dinoflagellates live inside the corals' tissues. The algae use photosynthesis to produce nutrients, many of which they pass to the corals' cells. The corals in turn emit waste products in the form of ammonium, which the algae consume as a nutrient.
Coral reefs begin to form when free-swimming coral larvae attach to submerged rocks or other hard surfaces along the edges of islands or continents. As the corals grow and expand, reefs take on one of three major characteristic structures — fringing, barrier or atoll.
Fish, corals, lobsters, clams, seahorses, sponges, and sea turtles are only a few of the thousands of creatures that rely on reefs for their survival.
Cnidaria have important ecological roles as reef structure builders, and as predators and prey in planktonic and benthic ecosystems.
At night, coral polyps come out of their skeletons to feed, stretching their long, stinging tentacles to capture critters that are floating by. Prey are pulled into the polyps' mouths and digested in their stomachs.
Algae belonging to the group known as dinoflagellates live inside the corals' tissues. The algae use photosynthesis to produce nutrients, many of which they pass to the corals' cells. The corals in turn emit waste products in the form of ammonium, which the algae consume as a nutrient.
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 jellyfish. Unlike sea anemones, corals secrete hard carbonate exoskeletons that support and protect the coral. Most reefs grow best in warm, shallow, clear, sunny and agitated water. Coral reefs first appeared 485 million years ago, at the dawn of the Early Ordovician, displacing the microbial and sponge reefs of the Cambrian.[2]
Sometimes called rainforests of the sea,[3] shallow coral reefs form some of Earth's most diverse ecosystems. They occupy less than 0.1% of the world's ocean area, about half the area of France, yet they provide a home for at least 25% of all marine species,[4][5][6][7] including fish, mollusks, worms, crustaceans, echinoderms, sponges, tunicates and other cnidarians.[8] Coral reefs flourish in ocean waters that provide few nutrients. They are most commonly found at shallow depths in tropical waters, but deep water and cold water coral reefs exist on smaller scales in other areas.
Coral reefs have declined by 50% since 1950, partly because they are sensitive to water conditions.[9] They are under threat from excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), rising ocean heat content and acidification, overfishing (e.g., from blast fishing, cyanide fishing, spearfishing on scuba), sunscreen use,[10] and harmful land-use practices, including runoff and seeps (e.g., from injection wells and cesspools).[11][12][13]
Coral reefs deliver ecosystem services for tourism, fisheries and shoreline protection. The annual global economic value of coral reefs has been estimated at anywhere from US$30–375 billion (1997 and 2003 estimates)[14][15] to US$2.7 trillion (a 2020 estimate)[16] to US$9.9 trillion (a 2014 estimate).[17]
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