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News tagged with coral

Atlantic currents have seen 'drastic' changes: study

Scientists have found evidence of a "drastic" shift since the 1970s in north Atlantic Ocean currents that usually influence weather in the northern hemisphere, Swiss researchers said on Tuesday.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jan 04, 2011 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (43) | comments 38

Oceans in distress foreshadow mass extinction

Pollution and global warming are pushing the world's oceans to the brink of a mass extinction of marine life unseen for tens of millions of years, a consortium of scientists warned Monday.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jun 20, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (20) | comments 22

Dolomite discovery ends 100-year treasure hunt

(PhysOrg.com) -- The century-old mystery of a missing mineral in coral reefs has been solved by a team from The Australian National University. 

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 09, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (17) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Unprecedented, man-made trends in ocean's acidity

Recent carbon dioxide emissions have pushed the level of seawater acidity far above the range of the natural variability that existed for thousands of years, affecting the calcification rates of shell-forming ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jan 22, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (20) | comments 29 | with audio podcast

Trouble in paradise: Ocean acidification this way comes

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble.---Shakespeare, Macbeth

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jan 05, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (16) | comments 23 | with audio podcast

Carbon dioxide affecting fish brains: study

Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous systems of sea fish, with serious consequences for their survival, according to new research.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jan 16, 2012 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (15) | comments 15

First ever photo of fish using tools

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new paper soon to be published in Coral Reefs reveals the first ever photographs of a fish, in this case the blackspot tuskfish, using tools to acquire their food.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 11, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (12) | comments 17 | with audio podcast report

Ocean climate change damage to cost $2 trillion

Greenhouse gases are likely to result in annual costs of nearly $2 trillion in damage to the oceans by 2100, according to a new Swedish study

Space & Earth / Environment

created Mar 21, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (12) | comments 12

Study reveals unprecedented impact of Deepwater Horizon on deep ocean

Scientists report they have "compelling evidence" that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has impacted deep-sea corals. Their study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences utiliz ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Mar 26, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (11) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

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.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Feb 22, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (11) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Scientists find damage to coral near BP well

For the first time, federal scientists have found damage to deep sea coral and other marine life on the ocean floor several miles from the blown-out BP well - a strong indication that damage from the spill ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Nov 06, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (9) | comments 4

Declines in Caribbean coral reefs pre-date damage resulting from climate change

The decline of Caribbean coral reefs has been linked to the recent effects of human-induced climate change. However, new research led by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego suggests ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Mar 30, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (9) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Oceans where fishes choke

(PhysOrg.com) -- Australian marine scientists have expressed disquiet over the continued worldwide spread of large, dead zones in the ocean.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Nov 30, 2010 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (9) | comments 9 | with audio podcast

Ocean acidification will likely reduce diversity, resiliency in coral reef ecosystems: new study

A new study from University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science scientists Chris Langdon, Remy Okazaki and Nancy Muehllehner and colleagues from the Australian Institute of Marine ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created May 29, 2011 | popularity 3.6 / 5 (11) | comments 19 | with audio podcast

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 ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jan 04, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (9) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

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.