''Montipora grisea'' is a small polyped
stony coral
Scleractinia, also called stony corals or hard corals, are marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria that build themselves a hard skeleton. The individual animals are known as polyps and have a cylindrical body crowned by an oral disc in which a mo ...
in the family
Acroporidae
Acroporidae is a family of small polyped stony corals in the phylum Cnidaria. The name is derived from the Greek ''"akron"'' meaning "summit" and refers to the presence of a corallite at the tip of each branch of coral. They are commonly known ...
.
Description
It is an encrusting species considered to be massively sized, with "thick unifacial plates."
[Australian Institute of Marine Science, 2013]
''Montipora grisea''.
Montipora grisea. Corals of the World. It is usually dark brown or green in color, but also appears in shades of blue or pink.
These corals have small bumps, known as thecal papillae, that are fused together around the corallite.
[Veron J. E. N. (1993). In ''Biogeographic database of hermatypic coral species of the central Indo-Pacific, genera of the world'' story, Australian Institute of Marine Science, 57-58.] They also have a coenosteum papillae that is present.
Distribution & habitat
''Montipora grisea'' has a vast range, found within the reefs of forty-five countries and territories throughout the Indian and Pacific oceans. It exists at depths of 3 to 20 meters, with a preference for "shallow, tropical reef environments on upper reef slopes."
[Australian Institute of Marine Science, 2013. ''Montipora grisea''. Montipora grisea. Corals of the World.]
Despite being considered a common species with a presently large population, ''Montipora grisea'' faces an array of threats.
It is moderately susceptible to
bleaching
Bleach is the generic name for any chemical product that is used industrially or domestically to remove color (whitening) from a fabric or fiber or to clean or to remove stains in a process called bleaching. It often refers specifically, to ...
, though notably less so than ''
Acropora'' corals.
Other threats include predation from the
crown-of-thorns starfish, harvesting for the
aquarium trade
Fishkeeping is a popular hobby, practiced by aquarists, concerned with keeping fish in a home aquarium or garden pond. There is also a piscicultural fishkeeping industry, serving as a branch of agriculture.
Origins of fishkeeping
Fish ha ...
,
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
and
ocean acidification
Ocean acidification is the reduction in the pH value of the Earth’s ocean. Between 1751 and 2021, the average pH value of the ocean surface has decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14. The root cause of ocean acidification is carbon dioxid ...
.
Reproduction and Development
These corals can be hermaphroditic or gonochoric.
[Khalesi, M. K. (2015). ''Corals.'' Springer Handbook of Marine Biotechnology, 179–217.] Their zygote produces planktonic planula larvae.
[Bernard, H. M. (1897). ''XI.—Notes, morphological and systematic, on the Madreporarian Subfamily Montiporinæ (Montipora and Anacropora), with an account of the Phylogeny of the Madreporidæz,'' Macmillan and Co, ''20'', 117–135.] Metamorphosis takes place early before larval settlement occurs on the opposite side of the mouth.
References
Acroporidae
Cnidarians of the Indian Ocean
Cnidarians of the Pacific Ocean
Marine fauna of Asia
Marine fauna of Oceania
Corals described in 1897
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