What is a Coral Reef

A Coral or Anthozoa is an ecosystem that despite looking like a plant is

many small marine animals called Polyps (Singular Polyp). A polyp has a
soft saclike body with tentacles with size that can range from a
pinhead to a bit larger than a basketball and is similar in composition to
Jellyfishes and Sea Anemones. For support and protection it makes an
exoskeleton of calcium carbonate or limestone also known as a calicle
from the seawater around.Eventually, Polyp calicles connect to each
other creating a colony with many polyps working together to act as
one creature. Over time the coral colonies connect and make coral
reefs that can stretch for hundreds of Kilometers. While the corals
occasionally use their tentacles to get food, they mostly get their food
from the algae called zooxanthellae that take shelter in the coral and
give it its bright colors.

What are the various biotic and abiotic interactions in

a coral reef ?

Some of the Biotic interactions are:

● Predation - You have carnivorous fish eating other fish, you have
Sharks eating fish or fish eating the coral polyps

You also have the types of symbiosis

● Competition - Two or more of the sea creatures fighting for
resources e.g. - Two fish might fight over territory on a reef.
 ● Mutualism - Two organisms benefiting from each other like the
algae in coral which gives it food and its color in exchange for
shelter.
● Parasitism - One organism benefiting itself at the cost of its host
organism’s well being like isopods which suck the blood out of fish
eventually killing the host.
● Commensalism - One organism benefiting itself through another
without any effect on the other organism like fish which are
immune to the tentacles of a jellyfish hiding in them.

Some of the Abiotic interactions are:

● Temperature - Corals survive in warm waters and if the

water temperature is too low the algae in the coral will be
removed causing the coral to die.
● Salt levels - Corals are saltwater animals and if the level of
salt is too high or low then the polyps will die.
● Light levels - Coral needs sunlight to survive and will die if
the water is too dark or has too much sediment.
● Waves - Coral reefs block up to 95% of Waves and Currents
and by doing so prevent natural disasters like tsunamis. This
takes its toll and the Coral can break down.

How are the Coral Reefs affected ?

Coral reefs are dying out due to Human Wastage like factory oil or
pollutants and sediments seeping into the water and killing the Polyps
due to lack sunlight and toxins along with global warming heating the
 water which kills the polyps. There are also fishers that bomb the
reefs in an attempt to get the fish to appear, killing the coral in the
process.

Does it cause imbalance to the marine ecosystem

Due to coral reefs being the home of 25% of marine life, if coral reefs
die it causes the creatures on it to die. As many of these creatures are
rather low on the oceanic food pyramid along with causing the collapse
of the ecosystems on the reefs it also damages the marine food
pyramid/ecosystem and through that the land food pyramid which
could collapse the entire earth’s ecosystem

What is the problem which the scientific method/tool

will solve?

As discussed above, Artificial coral reefs would solve the problem of

life in water decreasing so much due to human activities.

Summarize the process of how scientists do it. ( solve

or address the problem)

● Firstly, they choose the location depending on factors like the

coral population, temperature, Environment, Salinity and
materials.
 ● Secondly,

Citations

● The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

website
● The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) website
● The Coral Reef Alliance website
● The National Geographic Society website
● The website of the Monterey Bay Aquarium
● Scientific papers and articles about coral reefs