What Is Coralline Coral Reef Ecosystems?

Introduction:

Coral reefs, as underwater ecosystems are held together by calcium carbonate structure secreted by corals. Some tiny marine animals who contain few nutrients built them. Under the reputation as the most diverse ecosystems on Earth, they occupy less than 0.1% of the world’s ocean surface and therefore, they have a nickname called rainforests of the sea (). However, interestingly, coral reefs can survive with few nutrients supply. Most of coral reefs are located at shallow depths in tropical waters while a small portion of them can also be found in deep water. The economic value of coral reef ecosystem is huge, approximately 29.8-375 billion a year because it services to tourism, fisheries and shoreline protection. But coral reef

Those fragments can form sandy bottoms in associated reef lagoons or settle into spaces in the reef structure. Not limited to coral skeletons, other micro-organism in the reef community provide the same function (). A particular kind of organism named Coralline algae strength reef structure by depositing limestone in sheets over the reef surface. This reinforcement could help coral reef to stand against the greatest forces acted by waves.

There are many different shapes for coral species. For example, the wrinkled brain shape coral reefs are usually found in shallow warm-water ().

The reproduction mechanism of coral reefs can be divided into two types. One of them is sexual reproduction and the other is asexual reproduction. Both of them would occur in the lifetime of every polyp. As opposed to human beings, coral reefs can reproduce sexually by either internal or external fertilization. The mesentery membranes, as the location for reproductive cells, radiate inward from the layer of tissue that lines the stomach cavity. Transsexual operation which can change sex for human being becomes redundant in the coral reef ecosystem since some mature adult corals are hermaphroditic while others can change sex as they

From the research done by the environmental group World Wide Fund for Nature, the cost over a twenty-five-year period of destroying one kilometer of coral reef is around 137 thousand dollars and 1.2 million dollars. Coral reefs with careful management and protection can yield 15 tons of seafood on average per square kilometer annually. For example, the coral reef fisheries in Southeast Asia produce approximately 2.4 billion from seafood annually.

Currently, coral reefs are dying rapidly around the world due to various environmental issues such as urban runoff, overfishing, diseases, invasive species, coral mining, ocean acidification, global warming, pollution and the digging of canals (). The most serious cause would be bioerosion which can change the morphology of coral reefs and makes them more susceptible to other chemical and physical threats. Increasing water temperature can also cause a lot of damage in coral reef ecosystem. In 1998, 16% of the world’s reefs died because of the EI Nino crisis. As usual, human activities such as tourism contribute to the decrease of coral reef’s population. For example, the Great Barrier Reef dies of since the ecotourism in this area (). Researches demonstrate that nearly 10% of the world’s coral reefs are dead and about 60% of them are at risk. In