News tagged with coral
Rapid coral death by a deadly chain reaction
(Phys.org) -- Most people are fascinated by the colorful and exotic coral reefs, which form habitats with probably the largest biodiversity. But human civilisation is the top danger to these fragile ecosystems ...
May 24, 2012 |
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Nuisance seaweed found to produce compounds with biomedical potential
A seaweed considered a threat to the healthy growth of coral reefs in Hawaii may possess the ability to produce substances that could one day treat human diseases, a new study led by scientists at Scripps ...
May 24, 2012 |
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DNA evidence shows that marine reserves help to sustain fisheries
Researchers reporting online on May 24 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology present the first evidence that areas closed to all fishing are helping to sustain valuable Australian fisheries. The intern ...
May 24, 2012 |
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A classic model for ecological stability revised, 40 years later
A famous mathematical formula which shook the world of ecology 40 years ago has been revisited and refined by two University of Chicago researchers in the current issue of Nature.
Feb 19, 2012 |
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Troubled freighter drifts toward Great Barrier Reef
A broken-down cargo ship was drifting towards the fringes of Australia's Great Barrier Reef Saturday, with fears of major damage if it were to run aground at the World Heritage-listed site.
May 19, 2012 |
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Pacific islands may become refuge for corals in a warming climate, study finds
Scientists have predicted that ocean temperatures will rise in the equatorial Pacific by the end of the century, wreaking havoc on coral reef ecosystems. But a new study shows that climate change could cause ocean currents ...
Apr 29, 2012 |
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Trouble in paradise: Ocean acidification this way comes
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble.---Shakespeare, Macbeth
Jan 05, 2012 |
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Genome of marine organism reveals hidden secrets
An international team of researchers led by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has deciphered the genome of a tropical marine organism known to produce substances potentially ...
May 09, 2011 |
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Australia's Barrier Reef to get Google treatment
Australian scientists mapping the Great Barrier Reef will broadcast their findings in partnership with Google, emulating its "Street View" to spotlight the impact of climate change.
Mar 02, 2012 |
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One-quarter of grouper species being fished to extinction
Groupers, a family of fishes often found in coral reefs and prized for their quality of flesh, are facing critical threats to their survival. As part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) ...
May 09, 2012 |
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Weed-eating fish 'help protect jobs, livelihoods'
Jobs, livelihoods and ecotourism industries can benefit from having a diverse supply of weed-eating fish on the world's coral reefs, marine researchers say.
May 08, 2012 |
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Seeing without eyes: Hydra stinging cells respond to light
In the absence of eyes, the fresh water polyp, Hydra magnipapillata, nevertheless reacts to light. They are diurnal, hunting during the day, and are known to move, looping end over end, or contract, in res ...
Mar 04, 2012 |
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New models to predict coral bleaching
(Phys.org) -- Curtin University researchers have used computational fluid dynamics and powerful supercomputers to create new models for understanding and predicting coral bleaching.
May 17, 2012 |
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World's oceans get an acid bath
Among the repercussions of global climate change, the effect of ocean acidification on marine life is one of the least-understood variables.
Feb 22, 2012 |
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Fish mimics octopus that mimics fish
Nature's game of intimidation and imitation comes full circle in the waters of Indonesia, where scientists have recorded for the first time an association between the black-marble jawfish (Stalix cf. histrio) and th ...
Jan 04, 2012 |
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Coral
Alcyonaria 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.
