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Deep-water coral Paragorgia arborea and a Coryphaenoides fish at a depth of 1,255 m (4,117 ft) on the Davidson Seamount. The habitat of deep-water corals, also known as cold-water corals, extends to deeper, darker parts of the oceans than tropical corals, ranging from near the surface to the abyss, beyond 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) where water temperatures may be as cold as 4 °C (39 °F).
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]
The classification of corals has been discussed for millennia, owing to having similarities to both plants and animals. Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus described the red coral, korallion, in his book on stones, implying it was a mineral, but he described it as a deep-sea plant in his Enquiries on Plants, where he also mentions large stony plants that reveal bright flowers when under water in ...
Conservation status for warm-water reef-building corals was analysed for the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List. 44% of warm-water coral species facing extinction ...
The extreme heat prompted NOAA to add new colors to its coral bleaching warning scale this year. Previously, the scale went from “no stress” to “alert level 2,” an open-ended category that ...
Coral reef farming involves extracting a part of a coral colony or free-floating larvae from a reef, and growing them in a nursery until outplanting [5] would be successful. It is commonly referred to as the "gardening method" and has been compared to silviculture as a management practice that mimics natural ecosystems.
Historically, industrial fishers avoided coral because their nets would get caught on the reefs. In the 1980s, "rock-hopper" trawls attached large tires and rollers to allow the nets to roll over rough surfaces. Fifty-five percent of Alaskan cold-water coral that was damaged by one pass from a bottom trawl had not recovered a year later.
Coral Growth in Cabbage Tree Bay, NSW. Corals might evade ocean warming by migrating into what had been cooler waters. [2] The planktonic larvae of the corals could colonise suitable new areas, but for corals in places like the Great Barrier Reef; the required migration rate is about 15 km per year, which is much faster than corals can grow. [2]