Thank you for signing up to keep in touch with the Coral Conservation Project. Pictured above, you will find your coral frame as it was few days after construction. Your personal page will allow you to see more regular updates and amazing facts about the corals and animals living on your frame. By now having all the updates on one page, seeing the progress of your frame will be much easier and convenient. If you want to satisfy your curiosity even more, you can take a look at our Marine Blog Life and videos from the Marine Lab Diary or connect with us for more information.
Here is the start of a healthy coral reef relationship!
Look at this amazing visitor to your frame! These are just a few of the species that would often visit the coral frames and are extremely helpful at times when cleaning the frames. This species is called the Moon Wrasse (Thalassoma lunare) a very typical and brightly colored species of fish found in the Maldives. It belongs to the wrasse family which consists of over 600 described species that range on average around 20 cm although the Humphead and Napoleon wrasse can grow up to 2 meters! They are carnivores by nature, feeding on a wide range of small invertebrates such as crabs or snails. Many smaller wrasses follow the feeding trails of larger fish, picking up invertebrates disturbed by their passing.
Looking at your frame, you will see that it is doing amazing and the corals are really growing well since the last update even after the heated months and some stormy weather. We have done some recent maintenance on all the frames which include cleaning them, removing the invasive algae and coral predators to maximize growth. In the upcoming post we will show you close-ups of your frame and the coral fragments, with some interesting facts and findings about those that are on your frame. After 6 months you will see a similar post showing once again the progress of your frame.
As you can see from the picture, your coral frame are colonized by some little, brown and green organisms called Ascidia. The species is called Didemnum molle (also known as the green barrel sea squirt or the green reef sea-squirt.) and is very common in the Indo-Pacific area. Ascidia is a filter-feeder, feeding on suspended plankton and detritus and its green color is given by the algae living in symbiosis with them, in this way the algae is protected by the predation and the Ascidia can receive energy from its little hosts. Luckily they don’t possess any threat to the corals when they are few in numbers, however they can colonize quite quickly on the frames through asexual budding, as such they are regularly removed to minimize competition with growing corals.
Coral reefs are one of the most diverse systems on the planet, and sometimes corals can be new substrate for sessile gastropods, such as Ceraesignum maximum or otherwise known as an Operculate Worm Snail (Vermetidae, Mollusca). Individuals of C. maximum live in tubes embedded in the carbonate framework of the reef flat and secrete mucus nets extending ~10 cm around the individuals. The sticky nets billow under the turbulent action of impinging waves and indiscriminately trap suspended particles. The nets are withdrawn at regular intervals and consumed. In the picture it is visible the aperture of the tube, on an Acropora living on your frame.
The Dascyllus aruanus, known commonly as humbug damselfish, has found in your coral frame its home. This particular fish is known by multiple common names, such as three stripe damselfish, humbug dascyllus, or black and white damselfish. They only reach an adult size of 3-4 inches (7.6-10 cm). Sporting three broad black stripes on a white body, the humbug damselfish has a zebra like appearance. The stripes run slightly off vertical through the eyes and mouth, midbody and bisecting the caudal peduncle, making it half black and half white. There are several contestants for the title of most important reef fish family, but the Damselfish are certainly one of the front-runners. Not only are there numerous species, but also many of these species are present on Maldivian reefs in prodigious numbers. The humbug damselfish that you can see in the picture is associated with isolated coral heads in sheltered inshore habitats. Like all damselfish, they can be territorial and aggressive, especially as they get older.
What is biodiversity? Biodiversity is the variety of living species that can be found in a particular place, for instance the number of coral species on your coral fame. Coral reefs are said to have the highest biodiversity of any ecosystem on the planet—even more than a tropical rainforest. In this particular image you can see two species of the Acropora genus, one of the fastest growing species of coral. Since we collect broken fragments from the bottom and not original colonies, the biodiversity on the frames is often between 1 and 4 species of corals, depending on location of collection. You will see that these small pieces have already grown quite a bit since in the one year since construction. Of course we always try to keep the diversity high between all of the frames and during maintenance we often add new pieces onto the frame. We will soon see that lots of marine life occupying your frame and this is what we are aiming for with our coral conservation project.
Do you know that even under the water we can found cobwebs? The responsible invertebrate responsible for this mesh is not a spider, but rather a gastropod mollusk called Ceraesignum maximum. As all Vermeidae, this mollusk species is sessile and houses themselves within tubular shells. They are common dwellers of shallow water in coral reefs and rocky shores. These nets are called mucus nets that can be expand around the individual up to 10 cm in diameter. Under wave action and currents allow suspended particles to be trapped in these sticky nets that are withdrawn at regular intervals for consumption.
This is your 6 month frame progress update. Your frame is doing fantastic!
Looking at your frame, we can see lots of new growth, especially of the acropora corals (the branching & fast growing corals). We can see some of the corals are competing for space, which is a good problem to have, it means your frame is thriving. We can also see that your frame is contributing to the overall health of the coral ecosystem. We see lots of life such as little fish, crabs, worms and mollusks around your frame. Overall your frame has survived the warm months of March, April and May just fine, unfortunately some of the other frames in our colony weren’t so lucky.
Over the following months we will continue with maintenance to keep harmful algae and predators off your frame and to give your frame the best chance for successful growth.
Have you ever wondered how do corals grow bigger or how their branches are getting longer? Coral reefs are mainly built by stony or hard corals, together with their endosymbiotic algae (algae living into the corals), zooxanthellae. To give you some information on how the calcification process works. The main elements needed to build the skeleton are Ca2+ (Calcium ions) and DIC (Dissolved Inorganic Carbon). Both these elements are transported into a specific area of the coral called the “calcifying region”, which is situated under each single polyp. Here, the calcium carbonate (CaCO3) is formed throughout a chemical reaction. Finally, the calcium carbonate (or technically crystals of aragonite) is deposited to form the skeleton. The process involves the polyp’s cells and the zooxanthellae and by the mutualistic work of these two counterparts the skeleton is formed. However, if for any reasons (i.e. high temperature) one of the two parts is not working properly the process stops and the coral may die.
Coral reefs for the most part appear to be static environments, despite the presence of ever busy fish life, that is because most of the activities happening within corals are invisible to our eyes. In fact, coral reefs are a dynamic environment where every cm2 may hide beauty or a fight for survival! Among the invisible, corals are surely the most active, by building the amazing structure which allow us to see paradise tropical islands! However, they are continuously fighting for the survival, against predators, disease and environmental changes, and even between them. They are supplied with microscopic needles and venomous tentacles to kill any other corals and ejecting their stomach to digest them. The battle-zones when two different corals are easy to spot, there is often a cleared band between the two where they’ve killed each other off. They use similar tactics when they are fighting off invading algae. On healthy reefs, corals can maintain their territory, often beating back and even killing various types of algae. Here you will notice the two types of Pocillopora growing very closely together on your frame
Have you ever wondered why some corals are more colorful than others… That is because some corals increase the production of colourful protein pigments (such as these purple tips) when they are exposed to more intense sunlight and this colony, of a branching Acropora, is simply amazing. Scientist have found that these pink, blue and/or purple proteins act as sunscreens for the corals by removing substantial light components that might otherwise become harmful to the algae hosted in their tissue. Corals rely on these light-dependent miniature plants, the so-called zooxanthellae, since they provide a substantial amount of food. Furthermore, these tips consist of a particular polyp called an “apical polyp”. It is responsible of the growth of the particular branch. For instance, it will reproduce asexually by cloning itself, potentially an infinite number of times throughout its lifetime. Here and there, one of the “radial polyps” will differentiate becoming a new apical polyp with its distinguished purple color, driving the growth of a new branch.
Humans get a sun tan – corals become more colourful.
We have noticed that some fragments such as this one pictured have some damage and as a result they die completely. This happens from time to time that fragments might receive very high stress levels due to increased water temperatures and they lose the symbiotic algae Zooxanthellae that they need to survive. Sometimes corals also need to compete with invasive algae that grow over the polyps and when this happens they will also die off. During the maintenance these pieces of dead coral is usually removed while the live part remains attached.
Coral growth is a process that takes a very long time since corals invest a lot of energy in building their calcium carbonate skeleton. Stony corals (or scleractinians) are the corals primarily responsible for laying the foundations of, and building up, the reef structures. Massive reef structures are formed when each individual stony coral organism—or polyp—secretes a skeleton of calcium carbonate. In this photo you can appreciate the growth of this Acropora digitifera fragment which is growing very on your frame.
Here we would like to give some information about this nice looking Pocillopora meandrina also known as the cauliflower coral that is located on your coral frame. Colonies have radiating branches and can reach up to 40 cm in diameter. In this species many or most of the branches are flattened on the ends and some may be curved. Colonies are cream, green or pink. This species is widespread in the Maldives, and common in the shallow reef environments on exposed reef front.
