Greater than Galveston

 

Lets talk about coral. I snorkeled over tons of it and--on this trip--I became aware of the fact that I really knew nothing about it. I know that its not at the top of everyone's list when we have such cute domestic and land mammals to distract us in America but, nevertheless, this organism is more alive and interesting than most people think. 

My most memorable interaction with the sea came with playing in the oil-polluted waters of Galveston, an island near Houston, Texas. My mom would take me there and I’d play in the water all the time thinking nothing of it’s dingy brown hue or virtually lifeless waters. Snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef and taking time to learn about all the life forms that depend on the reef was an eye opening experience for me. It really made me redefine my mental framework of what could exist in the ocean.

It is true that coral is mostly skeleton and relatively a thin layer of actual living matter but what is fascinating is that coral are indeed alive. They don’t move much and can be pretty hard to the touch often leading us to believe that they are passive and brainless. Some people may know that coral provide shelter to a lot of sea life but we often ignore them as living beings.

Picture it like this: We often have connections to our own homes right? We build them, take care of them and fix them. We mold them to our comfort and grown dependent on them. We have the familiar expression “If these walls could talk” which shows that humans sometimes see a home as a living extension of themselves and their experiences. Well what if your home was a living species that couldn’t talk but could sustain itself? It can’t and never will but coral has been able to since the beginning of time.

“They are the basis for the ecosystem” says Joseph Pollock, a PHD candidate at the Australia Institute of Marine Science. He studies coral diseases and knows how important they are for our seas.

So what exactly about a coral makes it alive? Cnidaria. They are a part of the same category as jellyfish. They, like these more familiar creatures, polyps (stingers) that eject when possible predators or food come near. They also have no central nervous system but deep inside they do have a mouth.  By themselves coral are pretty small but they colonize, or group together, pool their resources and get energy from their environment.  They feed on plankton but roughly 80% of their energy comes from the sun. They indirectly harbor this fuel from algae that they depend on for photosynthesis like little solar panels. This is also where coral get their classic red and pink color.
Well coral are part of a class of sea life called

 Believe it or not, coral even have sex!

Coral Spawning 

Coral spawns every year based on moon cycles, currents and the time of day. They must be accurate in their detection of the right breeding conditions because, as I mentioned earlier, coral have to get with the groove and colonize or they can’t start building themselves up. Like any strong structural organism coral have to first find a good sunny spot in the ocean, then they proceed to build up a skeleton so they aren’t so tiny and vulnerable. This structure becomes home to worms and other small species like fish and crabs that live inside them. Our friend the giant clam also settles within this skeletal structure.

How coral interact with each other is perhaps the most recognizable aspect of their behavior as organisms. There are different species of coral and they have a variety of strengths that allow them to compete for resources space and sunlight. When two competing coral exist too closely together they have one of two direct defenses. They can either release filaments full of stingers in an attempt to hurt the other one or they can essentially throw up all of their stomach acid onto the other coral, which does damage as well. They will do this until one gives up and starts to grow away from the other ending the space war. They can also indirectly compete. For instance there is a type of coral known as boulder coral that would be better at taking damage from storm waves than say branching coral which have branch like polyps that aren’t very durable when it comes withstanding strong forces.

It is amazing to me how full of life and adaptive a seemingly passive organism can be. Unfortunately, they can only do so much. Human activities like dredging, coastal run-off and over fishing herbivorous fish hurts coral because it disrupts the sensitive environment in which they must thrive making them more susceptible to disease. There are also indirect threats like ocean acidification and ocean warming. The former makes it hard for coral to build up their skeletal base and the latter causes a process know as bleaching. Bleaching occurs when the algae living on coral are subjected to high temperatures and begin to release harmful chemicals to coral. The coral responds by kicking the algae off of its body, which can be fatal if the waters don’t return to normal temperature, allowing the coral and algae to stabilize and continue in peace.

Life among coral

I am glad that I left Galveston and was able to see a community so different from my own. I’ve also heard about the Great Barrier Reef but I never knew how it actually would connect to my life. There are many useful reasons that coral exists but all you really need to do is gaze upon its beauty along with the peacefulness of the amazing life forms that inhabit it to want to preserve this natural wonder of the world. I really don’t want a world where all my child sees are oil-saturated waters.

“If you’re out on one reef there’s a million stories there” Says Pollock.

There is no doubt in my mind that I want future generations to know those stories.

Joseph Pollock diving among plate and branching coral