Sea Life Deep Sea Fishes Sea Turtles Green Sea Turtles Hawksbill Sea Turtles Sea Lion Sea Monkeys Sea Otter Sea Birds Seahorses Sea Snakes Sea Dragons Sea Eagles Sea Anemone Sea Bass Sea Whales In the Sea Sea Shells Sea Sponges Sea Caves Sea Coral Sea Cucumbers Sea Pictures and Wallpapers Pictures of the Sea Sea Wallpapers Other Sea Information Deep Sea Diving Deep Sea Research Marine Biology Naval Sea Systems Sea Exploration Sea Grape Sea Level Rise Oceans and Seas Indian Ocean Southern Ocean Atlantic Ocean Arctic Ocean Pacific Ocean Baltic Sea The Aral Sea The Caspian Sea Japan Sea Red Sea Okhotsk Sea North Sea Dead Sea Yellow Sea Caribbean Sea Andaman Sea Mediterranean Sea Black Sea Barents Sea Kara Sea Coral Reef and Sea Plants Coral reefs are one of the best and busiest ecosystems that the earth has. Many types of creatures are found and build their lives around these reefs from the tiniest crustaceans to large creatures such as sharks and turtles, which use the reefs as a feeding ground. Coral reefs can have different sizes, shapes, and colors. Coral reefs are found in shallow waters of the ocean. Hawaii and Australia are famous for their coral reefs. Some animals that live in coral reefs are starfish, sea urchins, sea anemones, fish, clams, crabs, and sea horses. Coral reefs are the most luxuriant and complex of all benthic communities. The largest coral reef in the world, the Great Barrier Reef, stretches more than 2,000 km, from New Guinea southward along the east coast of Australia. Corals are colonial animals, and individual coral animals are called polyps. A coral polyp is very similar to a tiny sea anemone, but extracts calcium carbonate from the water and forms a calcareous skeletal cup. Large numbers of these polyps grow together in colonies of delicately branched forms or rounded masses. Most shallow-water coral colonies also have symbiotic algae living in their skeletons. The algae get protection from the coral and, in turn, provide nutrients for the coral polyps. These shallow reef-building corals require warm, clear, shallow, clean water and a firm substrate to which they can attach. Because the water temperature must not go below 18 degrees C and the optimum temperature is 23 degrees C to 25 degrees C, their growth is restricted to tropical waters between 30 N latitude and 30 S latitude and away from cold water currents. Water at depths greater than 50-100 m is too cold for significant secretion of calcium carbonate. Also, reefs usually are not found where sediments limit water transparency. Until recent legislation banned trawling in deep-sea coral beds off the coast of Norway, the existence of deep-sea corals was known only to a handful of scientists and a large number of fishermen. Along the American east coast several deep-water corals, such as the octocoral Primnoa resedaeformis and gorgonian Paragorgia arborea, are common inhabitants of the upper and middle slope faunas in the canyons south of Georges Bank. Deep-water coral colonies can be found in a variety of shapes and forms, from branched trees to conical mounds. Like shallow corals, they require a hard surface to settle on and grow. Given that the existence of these remarkable species has been known for more than a century, it is striking that almost nothing is known about their biology, population status, the role they play in enhancing local species diversity, and their role as habitat for deep water fishes, including those recently targeted by fishermen. The rarity of encounters with octocorals during recent submersible dives across the shelf of the northeast U.S. suggests that distribution of these species has significantly declined in the past three decades. These slow-growing species may live for centuries, yet be destroyed in seconds by human activities such as trawling and dredging. Trawling with rolling gear has allowed even larger and heavier gear into their rugged canyon homes. Sea Corals – Symbiosis The most important part in the building of a coral reef is the symbiotic relationships with zooxanthellae. There are also many natural polymers found within the species that occupy these realms. The most commonly found polymers are protein and cellulose, and cellulose is by far the most abundant. There are creatures called sea cucumbers, obviously because they look like cucumbers, but are really living animals. They have strong muscles that contain protein. Sea cucumbers also have a slime trail that they secret. The slime trail is made up of mucopolysaccharides. To better understand this I will break this word down. Muco means mucus, or in other words slime. Polysaccharide is a natural polymer; in fact it is the building block for many things. It is also known as a type of sugar. Polysaccharide can be broken down into glucose molecules, which can be found in virtually all of the food we eat! Another creature that lives around coral reefs and also secretes a mucopolysaccharide is a nudibranch. The nudibranch uses this secretion to find prey or possibly attract a mate. They are also known to contain Glucosaminoglycans (GAGS) that is used in medical applications for treating joint, ligament and tendon conditions. Chondroiten, a Glucocaminoglycan substance, is thought to have uses in treating arthritis. Among the many creatures living within coral reefs are plants. These plants provide photosynthetic operations. This just means that they use sunlight to make oxygen, which has to be really interesting since they are under the water. They also contain cellulose. Cellulose is not the only polymer found in plant cell walls. There are other materials, but they have not been researched completely enough to explain all of their potential uses. The group of organisms called Sea anemones is similar to the jellyfish only these creatures don't move around as much. They mostly stay in one place, such as a coral reef, but they do have the ability to move. Sea anemones, such as Metridium senile have layers of mesoglea that are a source of collagen, a type of protein. Plus their inside core is made up entirely of protein. Coral looks like a flower but can sting like a bee. Thousands of coral polyps live in a colony to form a coral reef. Reefs are like underwater versions of rain forests full of fantastic shapes and structures and life. The builders of the reefs, the coral polyps, have radial (rotational) symmetry. In this lesson, students will learn about radial symmetry and then have an opportunity to build symmetrical designs using pattern blocks. The lesson will take about an hour but the post viewing symmetry activities can continue as long as interest is sustained. Students will learn about coral reefs while listening to a narrator read a New England Aquarium book, Dive to the Coral Reefs. Students will discover scuba diving as a way of exploring the coral reefs. They will get a chance to "pretend" dive with a partner, check dive equipment before diving, and then explore the wonderful underwater world of the reefs! Sea Coral Research In recent years scientists have discovered deep-sea corals and/or coral reefs in Japan, Tasmania, New Zealand, Alaska, California, Nova Scotia, Maine, North Carolina, Florida, Colombia, Brazil, Norway, Sweden, UK, Ireland and Mauritania. Because research submarines and remotely operated vehicles suitable for studying the deep sea are few and expensive to operate, scientific investigation of these remarkable communities is in its very early stages. But it is increasingly clear that deep-sea corals usually inhabit places where natural disturbance is rare, and where growth and reproduction appear to be exceedingly slow. Deep-sea corals and sponges may live for centuries, making them and the myriad species that depend on them extremely slow to recover from disturbance. Sea Coral Conservation Unfortunately, just as scientists have begun to understand the diversity, importance and vulnerability of deep-sea coral forests and reefs, humans have developed technologies that profoundly disturb them. There is reason for concern about deep-sea oil and gas development, deep-sea mining and global warming, but, at present, the greatest human threat to coral and sponge communities is commercial fishing, especially bottom trawling. Trawlers are vessels that drag large, heavily weighted nets across the seafloor to catch fishes and shrimps. Scientific studies around the world have shown that trawling is devastating to corals and sponges. As trawlers become more technologically sophisticated, and as fishes disappear from shallower areas, trawling is increasingly occurring at depths exceeding 1,000 meters. It is not too late to save most of the world's deep-sea coral and sponge ecosystems. It is commendable that nations including Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Norway, which have already taken initial steps towards protecting some coral and sponge ecosystems under their jurisdiction. United Nations and appropriate international bodies should establish a moratorium on bottom trawling on the High Seas. Similarly, individual nations and states should ban bottom trawling to protect deep-sea ecosystems wherever coral forests and reefs are known to occur within their Exclusive Economic Zones. They should prohibit roller and rock hopper trawls and any similar technologies that allow fishermen to trawl on the rough bottoms where deep-sea coral and sponge communities are most likely to occur. They should support research and mapping of vulnerable deep-sea coral and sponge communities. It is expected of them to establish effective, representative networks of marine protected areas that include deep-sea coral and sponge communities.