Caral Reef short essay.
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Answer:
Coral reefs are the largest biological and most beautiful structures in the world.There are over 7,000 reefs in over 115 countries. The largest and most popular reef, the Great Barrier Reef is located in Australia. Coral reefs are constructed of algae and skeletons of plants and animals. There are four types of reefs: fringing, barrier, atoll, and patch.
Coral reefs are arguably the world’s most beautiful habitats. Coral reefs have been called the rainforests of the oceans, because of the rich diversity of life they support. Scientists have not yet finished counting the thousands of different species of plants and animals that use or live in the coral reef. They are massive underwater structures formed by the limestone skeletons of tiny invertebrate animals. Reefs house a greater diversity of body forms, chemistry, and animal phyla. Coral animals begin life as free-floating larvae, but settle on the sea floor in sedentary colonies. The term “coral” applies both to these animals and to their skeletons, particularly the skeletons of stone-like corals.
Many different organisms, including mollusks, sponges, and worms, help shape reefs, but hard corals and various algae are the major architects. In effect, the corals build limestone, because their skeletons are made of Calcium Carbonate. The skeletons deposited by these corals and other organisms accumulate, along with sand and other debris, to form the backbone of the reef.
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A 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 class Anthozoa in the animal phylum Cnidaria, which includes sea anemones and jellyfish. Unlike sea anemones, corals secrete hard carbonate exoskeletons that support and protect the coral. Most reefs grow best in warm, shallow, clear, sunny and agitated water. Coral reefs first appeared 485 million years ago, at the dawn of the Early Ordovician, displacing the microbial and sponge reefs of the Cambrian.[1]Sometimes called rainforests of the sea,[2] shallow coral reefs form some of Earth's most diverse ecosystems. They occupy less than 0.1% of the world's ocean area, about half the area of France, yet they provide a home for at least 25% of all marine species,[3][4][5][6] including fish, mollusks, worms, crustaceans, echinoderms, sponges, tunicates and other cnidarians.[7] Coral reefs flourish in ocean waters that provide few nutrients. They are most commonly found at shallow depths in tropical waters, but deep water and cold water coral reefs exist on smaller scales in other areas.Coral reefs deliver ecosystem services for tourism, fisheries and shoreline protection. The annual global economic value of coral reefs is estimated between US$30–375 billion[8][9] and US$9.9 trillion.[10] Coral reefs are fragile, partly because they are sensitive to water conditions. They are under threat from excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), rising temperatures, oceanic acidification, overfishing (e.g., from blast fishing, cyanide fishing, spearfishing on scuba), sunscreen use,[11] and harmful land-use practices, including runoff and seeps (e.g., from injection wells and cesspools).[12][13][14]
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