1. Life on a Coral Reef

3. Types of Reefs Three major types of coral reefs: fringing, barrier, and atoll. The fringing reef follows the shoreline closely. There is no body of water between the reef and the land. Barrier reefs begin offshore with a shallow lagoon connecting the shore and the reef. Atoll reefs are reefs that circle an island which then sinks. They consist of narrow horseshoe- shaped reef with a shallow lagoon.

4. The Great Barrier Reef One of the largest and most famous reefs is the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. How does the barrier reef protect the coast of Australia?

6. Man-made reef – ship wreck

7. What is Coral? A coral is a tiny, saltwater animal no bigger than a pencil eraser. The coral is not mobile, it stays in one place its whole life. Individual corals are called polyps. A polyp is made of a hollow tube shaped body and a mouth surrounded by tentacles. These tentacles sting and capture smaller drifting animals called zooplankton for food. Zooplankton are microscopic. White coral

10. Beauty of nature: life and death of a reef

11. Reef building corals Reef building corals build colonies of thousands of polyps which produce huge spreading structures of limestone and can stretch for thousands of miles Each coral polyp forms a major part of the reef and builds a protective limestone cup around its soft body, like an external skeleton

12. A view from the island

13. Look who greets you…

14. … and stays with you during a dive

15. Let’s go on down!

16. Travel down and up by the anchor rope

17. Here we go…

18. ..to a place where colors are “in!”

19. Animals living on or visiting a reef Sponges, seastars Corals, sea fans Sea slug, worms Tropical fish Turtles Mammals

20. Sponges

22. Orange sponge

23. Large sponges?

24. Giant sponges

25. House of sponge ~ Arrow crab rests in an azure vase sponge

27. Purple mushroom

28. Bubble coral

29. Green brain coral

31. Healthy coral reef scene

32. Relationships ? Some organisms can form lasting relationships with other life forms resulting in both organisms receiving some benefit – one organism gets food and the other gets its parasites removed

33. Other relationships Here a clown fish and an anemone have formed mutually beneficial relationship – the clown fish is protected in the home of the anemone, while the anemone might get a tasty meal as a larger organism tries to capture the fish

34. Harmful relationship : Soldierfish and a parasitic isopod

35. Can you find me? Can you imagine how hard it would be to recognize a marbled grouper as a fish if you were color- blind?

36. Purple ball anemone

37. Pillar coral

38. Sea fan

39. Deepwater sea fans

40. Christmas Tree Worms grow atop some star coral

41. Christmas Tree Worms are polychaetes

47. Octopus

48. Brittle stars

49. Spiny lobsters

50. Silky shark cruises the reef

51. Bonnethead shark

52. Plankton feeder ~ is a good thing!

55. School of bluestriped grunt

56. Pipehorse near the algae in which it lives

57. Almost-transparent blenny

58. Juvenile yellowtail damselfish

59. Juvenile French angel

60. Porkfish

61. Initial-phase yellowhead wrasse

62. Fans and trumpetfish

63. Sargassum triggerfish

64. Trunkfish

65. Squirrelfish

66. Queen triggerfish

67. Black durgon

68. Juvenile blue tang

69. Royal Gamma

70. Hamlet

71. Blenny

72. Garden eels

73. Jawfish

75. School of Bermuda chub

76. Diver hovers…

77. Tesselated blenny peeks out of its home in a barnacle shell

78. Fish haven!!

79. Beautiful, small and fragile…

80. …large and frightening to just unique jacknife fish moray eel

81. Unique Honeycomb cowfish Sharpnose puffer

82. Scorpionfish

83. White-spotted filefish

84. Yellowtail snappers

85. Turtles join

86. So many critters, so little time

87. Coral around this blackhead blenny's home is completely bleached September 1998

88. Saving the reef What can we do to protect the reefs of the world?

89. Here are some suggestions… 1. Become a certified diver 2. Get a group together 3. Check the internet 4. Book a trip Advice: do not go to Roatan in any month that ends in "ber." ~ Rainy season

90. References www.soc.soton.ac.uk/.../ecology/ph oto/coral/coral2.html http://www.daveread.com http://krupp.wcc.hawaii.edu/ BIOL200L/bio200L.htm

95. The end… Which end…