ScleractiniaScleractinia, 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 mouth is fringed with tentacles. Although some species are solitary, most are colonial. The founding polyp settles and starts to secrete calcium carbonate to protect its soft body.
CORALCORAL, short for Computer On-line Real-time Applications Language is a programming language originally developed in 1964 at the Royal Radar Establishment (RRE), Malvern, Worcestershire, in the United Kingdom. The R was originally for "radar", not "real-time". It was influenced primarily by JOVIAL, and thus ALGOL, but is not a subset of either.
Coral reefOutcrop of rock in the sea formed by the growth and deposit of stony coral skeletonsBiodiversity in a coral reefA coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Coral belongs to the classAnthozoa in the animal phylumCnidaria, which includes sea anemones and jellyfish.
SymbiosisSymbiosis (pl.: symbioses) is any close and long-term biological interaction between two organisms of different species. In 1879, Heinrich Anton de Bary defined symbiosis as "the living together of unlike organisms". The term is sometimes more exclusively used in a restricted, mutualistic sense, where both symbionts contribute to each other's subsistence. This means that they benefit each other in some way. Symbiosis is diverse and can be classified in multiple ways.
PhotosynthesisPhotosynthesis is a system of biological processes by which photopigment-bearing autotrophic organisms, such as most plants, algae and cyanobacteria, convert light energy—typically from sunlight—into the chemical energy necessary to fuel their metabolism. The term photosynthesis usually refers to oxygenic photosynthesis, a process that releases oxygen as a byproduct of water splitting.
ZooxanthellaeZooxanthellae (; sing.zooxanthella) is a colloquial term for photosyntheticsingle-celled organisms capable of symbiosis with diverse marineinvertebrates such as corals, jellyfish, demosponges, and nudibranchs. Most known zooxanthellae are in the dinoflagellategenusSymbiodinium, but some are known from the genus Amphidinium, and other taxa, as yet unidentified, may have similar endosymbiont affinities.
Turbinaria (coral)Turbinaria is a genus of colonial stony corals in the family Dendrophylliidae. Common names for this genus include disc coral, scroll coral, cup coral, vase coral, pagoda coral and ruffled ridge coral. These corals are native to the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Japan and the south Central Pacific Ocean.
Porites cylindricaPorites cylindrica, commonly known as Hump coral, is a stony coral belonging to the subclass Hexacorallia in the class Anthozoa. Hexacorallia differ from other subclasses in that they have six or fewer axes of symmetry. Members of this class possess colonial polyps which can be reef-building, secreting a calcium carbonate skeleton. They are dominant in both inshore reefs and midshelf reefs.
AnthozoaAnthozoa is one of the three subphyla of Cnidaria, along with Medusozoa and Endocnidozoa. It includes sessile marine invertebrates and invertebrates of brackish water, such as sea anemones, stony corals, soft corals and sea pens. Almost all adult anthozoans are attached to the seabed, while their larvae exist as zooplankton.
MycetophylliaMycetophyllia is a genus of stony corals in the family Mussidae. The genera are native to the Caribbean Sea and sometimes kept in reef aquariums. Like all corals in the family Mussidae, Mycetophyllia are hermatypic, or reef-building corals. They receive nutrients from their symbiotic relationship with zooxanthellae, which are single-celled photosynthetic dinoflagellates. They are passive suspension feeders that feed on organic matter suspended in the water column.
SiderastreidaeSiderastreidae is a family of reef building stony corals. Members of the family include symbiotic algae called Zooxanthellae in their tissues which help provide their energy requirements.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.