Cetaceans ID Guide

Coral Reef Ecology & Biodiversity

Coral Reef Ecology & Biodiversity CORAL REEF ECOLOGY Coral Polyps Hard Corals Soft Corals How Reefs Are Made What Do Corals Reefs Need to Survive? Where Are Coral Reefs Located? How Coral Reefs Grow How Corals Reproduce Types of Coral Reef Formations REEF THREATS Global Direct WHY CARE ABOUT REEFS? Although they cover less than 0.1% of the earth’s surface, coral reefs are the most biodiverse marine ecosystem in the world. Coral reefs are home to: 4,000 species of reef fish 840 species of corals Over 1 million species of other animals Where are corals located ? Coral reefs can be found in tropical destinations around the world, mostly in areas around the equator where the water is warmer. More than 100 countries have a coral reef within their borders, and over half of the world’s coral reefs are found within six countries: Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and the Maldives. Coral reefs are at the center of many coastal and island cultures worldwide. For exam...

Climate Change

NASA Announces Summer 2023 Hottest on Record This map depicts global temperature anomalies for meteorological summer in 2023 (June, July, and August). It shows how much warmer or cooler different regions of Earth were compared to the baseline average from 1951 to 1980. Credit: NASA's Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin Summer of 2023 was Earth’s hottest since global records began in 1880, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The months of June, July, and August combined were 0.41 degrees Fahrenheit (0.23 degrees Celsius) warmer than any other summer in NASA’s record, and 2.1 degrees F (1.2 C) warmer than the average summer between 1951 and 1980. August alone was 2.2 F (1.2 C) warmer than the average. June through August is considered meteorological summer in the Northern Hemisphere. This new record comes as exceptional heat swept across much of the world, exacerbating deadly wildfires in Canada and Hawaii, and searing h...

What is Coral ?

CORAL BIOLOGY CORAL DISEASES OUTBREAK INVESTIGATION RESEARCH PROTOCOLS Coral Polyp Anatomy Home » Coral Biology » Coral Polyp Anatomy Corals, often mistaken for plants due to their flower-like appearance, are animals that generally exist in the form of colonies . These colonies attach to oceanic substrate and when numerous colonies form a consortium, a coral reef arises. Corals are members of the Animal Kingdom with classification in the Phylum Cnidaria; further classification places them in the class Anthozoa that is closely related to the class Scyphyzoa (e.g. jelly fishes) and the class Hydrozoa (e.g. Hydra). The polyp is the basic living unit of Anthozoa (further subdivided into subclass Hexacorallia, which includes stony corals, and subclass Octocorallia, which includes soft corals). Polyps can occur either singularly, as in the case of anemones and some stony corals, or can form colonies, as they do ...

Tropical Marinelife Center

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