Marine Biology Chapter 11

Coral Reefs
OBJECTIVES
1. Describe a general coral reef community.
2. Describe the climate and conditions for most coral reefs.
3. Explain how coral can adapt to uctuating water temperature.
4. Name two major components of coral reefs.
5. Describe the structure of basic coral.
6. Explain how polyps grow and how they can reproduce.
7. State several sources of coral nutrition.
8. Di erentiate between three types of coral reefs.
9. Describe various aspects of reef ecology.
10. Examine several relationships with the reefs.
11. Identify symbiosis in reef life.
12. De ne terms
TERMS
1. Nematocysts
2. Corallite
3. Septa
4. Columella
5. Keys
6. Windward
7. Leeward
8. Obligate cleaners
9. Facultative cleaners

CORAL REEF COMMUNITY

- In this chapter we will move from the shoreline to the continental shelf and study the communities found there.
- Coral reef communities are generally found on the continental shelf, but they are not located in all parts of the
world.
- They are home to an amazing assortment of organisms and are the underwater equivalent of a diverse tropical
rainforest.

CLIMATE AND CONDITIONS

- Most coral reefs are found in the tropical climates of the world, this is because tropical reef-building corals
need warm temperatures in order to survive.
- Coral reefs mainly grow between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn — this band around the
earth receives a much larger portion of sunlight throughout the year and has overall warmer climates.
- Notice in Figure 11.1 that some coastlines experience a strong in ux of cold water and cold currents coming
from the poles, and are therefore not able to sustain coral reefs.
- What driving force pushes cold water upward from the antarctic and downward from the arctic?
- Besides warm water temperatures, reef-building coral have other requirements in order to grow.
• Hard substrate in order to cement itself
• Shallow, clear water for light penetration (also necessary for their symbiosis with the dino agellate algae,
zooxanthellae)
CORAL ADAPTATION
- Water that is too warm can be bad for corals; one of the rst signs of stress from warm temperatures will be
bleaching.
- Bleaching occurs when the coral expel their zooxanthellae. Since zooxanthellae provide brown and green
colors to the corals, the coral appears white after it has expelled them, thus the term coral bleaching.
- If the temperature conditions improve, and if the coral survived, any remaining zooxanthellae will reproduce
inside the coral to repopulate. Corals can also take in any of these dino agellates oating by in the water.
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 - Many corals also bleach so they can remove cold-tolerant zooxanthellae and acquire di erent warm-tolerant
strains, and vice-versa.
MAJOR COMPONENTS
- Coral reefs consist of two major components:
1. Reef builders
2. Reef inhabitants
- Reef builders are the organisms that actually produce the reef structure by secreting calcium carbonate
(limestone) around their bodies.
- Although corals are responsible for the formation of many of the reefs of the world, they are aided by other
organisms such as zooxanthellae and coralline algae.
- Reef inhabitants would of course be the many organisms that live in the coral reef system.
STRUCTURE OF BASIC CORAL
- The basic unit of a coral is called a polyp. The cup-
shaped body is fringed at the top by tentacles.
• Tentacles capture food and carry it to the central
mouth to be digested in the gut cavity.
• For some corals, each tentacle is covered with
defensive cells that contain coiled, harpoon-like
laments, called nematocysts, which can be
expelled to stun prey.
- Individual corals may be composed of a single polyp,
but most polyps subdivide their tissue into many
di erent polyps.
- Think of a coral colony as a single animal with many
mouths and connected to others joined by a thin skin
of tissue called the coenosarc.
- Each polyp is nestled into a little hole in a skeleton
called a corallite. Each corallite has a series of sharp
ridges called septa around its perimeter and pointed
columella extending upward from the oor.
POLYP GROWTH AND REPRODUCTION
- Asexual reproduction
• Corals can reproduce when skeletal pieces containing polyps are broken o .
• In some species the coenosarc between polyps dies back, e ectively creating multiple individuals as the
animal grows larger.
• Many species also produce gemmules, a tissue bulge, in which skeletal material grows and eventually falls
o the colony.
• Corals can bud.
- Sexual reproduction
• Some coral species produce both eggs and sperm simultaneously.
- Some species allow the gametes to fertilize and the egg develops into a planula larva inside the polyp
before being released.
- Many species release both types of gametes at the same approximate time as other individuals of their
species in the same area.
• Other species produce separate sexes. Either way, mass spawning usually occurs and often in yearly,
predictable cycles.
- Once the egg is fertilized, the planktonic planula larva settles onto a hard substrate, where it can transform
into a polyp.
- This transformation process—from larval form to adult form—is called metamorphosis.
- In most species, after metamorphosis, the single polyp divides repeatedly to form a colony.
CORAL NUTRIENTS
- Besides receiving carbohydrates from zooxanthellae, corals capture zooplankton, bacteria, and detritus for
food.
TYPES OF CORAL REEFS

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 - Basically three types of coral reefs found in creation growing o both continents and islands:
1. Fringing reef
2. Barrier reef
3. Atolls
- Fringing Reefs
• Fringing reefs are the most common reef type, they form borders a long warm shorelines that have a hard
surface on which the coral larvae can settle.
• Fringing reefs get their name because they “fringe” the shoreline; and since they are so near the shoreline,
these kinds of reefs are most likely to be a ected by sediments and runo .
• The longest known fringing reef is in the Red Sea.
• This area of the world has no freshwater streams to carry sediments into the ocean, and the waters are
warm and extremely clear…perfect for reef building.
• There are three regions within a fringing reef.
• The reef at is the area of the reef that is closest to the shore where the water is shallow; it is the widest part
of the reef.
• The reef crest is the point where the fringing reef begins to slope downward; the coral in this area are
proli c.
• The reef slope slants downward into deeper water, in many cases the slope is extremely steep.This area has
very dense coral growth, yet as the depth increases down the slope, the quantity of corals declines because
of the diminishing light.
• At the bottom of the reef slope there will usually be a build up of coral rubble and sediment.
- Barrier Reefs
• Barrier reefs are located farther o shore than fringing reefs and are separated from the shoreline by a
lagoon.
• Lagoons are typically calm areas because the barrier reef acts as a shield against currents and waves.
• The structures in a barrier reef are similar to those in a fringing reef with the addition of a back reef slope,
which is the result of the rise of coral from the lagoon upwards towards the reef at.
• Often the sand builds up enough to form small islands called keys.
• The fore reef slope (oceanward), is usually composed of spur and groove features, most likely caused by
strong wind and wave movements.
• Toward the upper levels of the reef, the coral growth is plentiful; either it is round in shape to withstand
wave action, or the colonies have hydrodynamic branches that are wave resistant.
• The most famous barrier reef in the world is the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, considered one of the
largest biological features on earth.
- Atolls
• The most interesting of the three types of coral reefs is the atoll.
• Atolls are usually ring-shaped reefs, enclosing one or more shallow lagoons. They are generally found in
areas far away from land, and sometimes surrounded by ocean depths of hundreds or even thousands of
meters.
• Why are atolls always in rings and how did they form?
• Atolls grow on top of extinct or inactive volcanoes and have a lagoon in the center where the caldera is
located.
• Varying sea levels that change with glacial cycles play a part in the formation of atolls; as sea levels rise,
coral sink and new reef material is formed on top.
• Depth of a coral reef lagoon does not match its age. The amount of rainfall in an area can be used to
directly predict isolated lagoon depth in the caldera because freshwater dissolves limestone. And since the
coral is lowered into the ocean when the volcano sinks or ocean rises, it speeds the growth rate (UV
protection and light penetration).
• Enewetak Atoll is the thickest known coral reef on the planet and the available data indicate that it can be
formed in under 3,500 years.
• The fore reef slope is located outside the ring and is extremely steep.
• The back reef slope is in the lagoon and gently slopes; it is made up of an uneven surface.
• The bottom of the lagoon is often interrupted by pillars of coral growth called pinnacles; some penetrate the
ocean surface forming patch reefs or islands within the atoll.
• Keys and a narrow reef at are also found on atolls.
• On the windward side a notable algal ridge of coralline algae occurs. Spur and groove formations are often
found on this side as well.
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 • The leeward side lacks an alga ridge as the result of little to no heavy waves.
REEF ECOLOGY
- Clearwater is not nutrient lled and has very little plankton. Since warm, tropical waters have a permanent
thermocline, the strati cation means that any food particles that fall o the reef are lost to the ecosystem.
- So how did these ecosystems survive? Remember that without zooxanthellae, coral would not be able to
make their skeletons as easily, their waste products would not be recycled as e ciently, and they would need
a richer external supply of nutrients.
- Also, the reef also makes much of its own usable nitrogen because of cyanobacteria living on and in the reef.
Nitrogen xation is tremendously high in a coral reef.
- Lastly, many reef shes feed on corals and produce wastes utilized by corals for food.
- You can see how nutrients move through the ecosystem as food, then as waste products, then as food again.
- Coral reefs are extremely pro cient at utilizing their nutrients and need very little supplementation, which
currents and other organisms provide.
REEF RELATIONSHIPS
- Corals can be erce competitors toward other corals for space and sunlight:
• Extend tiny laments out of their gut and digest their neighbor
• Use stinging tentacles strong enough to injure adjacent colonies
• Grow rapidly enough to branch out above neighboring coral and take over its sunlight
- Seaweeds could grow rapidly enough to overtake corals if nutrient levels in the water increase.
- Herbivore shes and sea urchins have very poor digestion and must continually eat in order to survive. Their
constant grazing on algae helps protect coral and other lter feeders by decreasing seaweed populations so
the seaweed does not overgrow reef surfaces and kill o corals.
- Soft corals are another group of organisms that competes for space on the reef.
- Soft corals do not produce a hard external skeleton, so they are able to grow much more quickly than reef
building corals and can aggressively take over an area on the reef.
- Next to corals, shes are the most noticeable organisms on a coral reef. The reef provides them with
protection and food.
- Some shes prey on mollusks, crustaceans, or other shes, importing nutrients to the reef system by feeding
on prey located in other areas by day and releasing wastes while resting on the reef at night.
SYMBIOSIS
- There are multiple symbiotic relationships in reefs but we will focus on two common, well-known relationships:
• Clown sh and sea anemones.
- The clown sh lures in other sh to be caught in the sea anemones tentacles. The clown sh excretes
waste products in the vicinity of the anemone, which the host eats or absorbs. Clown sh are very
territorial and will drive away other shes that eat anemones. The mucus on the clown sh renders the
coral nematocysts ine ective.
• Cleaner shes and cleaner shrimp.
- The cleaners usually advertise when they're open for cleaning. Organisms that might usually be a
predator for these cleaners behave in a docile manner so the cleaners can clean bits of food from
between the predator’s teeth. Sometimes, the cleaners will also remove parasites from the predators
gills.
- Some cleaners are obligate cleaners and some are facultative cleaners.

4 | Marine Biology, Chapter 11 Notes

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