Brain Coral Habitat
Like most other coral, brain coral inhabits saltwater environments throughout the world and are instrumental to the biodiversity of these marine habitats that other organisms are dependent upon. These habitats rely upon a careful balance to subsist.
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Brain Coral
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Brain coral comes from a large family of coral within the phylum Cnidaria, which includes jellyfish and sea anemones. Brain coral is composed of colonies of polyps that secrete a hard outer skeleton of calcium carbonate, which eventually form coral reefs. This type of coral is one of the important coral-reef builders. Its name comes from the grooves in its structure, which resembles an animal brain.
Location
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Brain coral lives in most of the world's oceans; due to the skeletons it creates, it can be found among coral reefs. In particular, the Great Barrier Reef---the world's largest reef system along the coast of northeast Australia, covering an area of 344,400 square kilometers---houses the most robust population of brain coral. Brain coral is also prevalent around the Indo-Pacific, Caribbean and Fiji regions.
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Environment
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Brain coral likes to live in an environment of warm, shallow water at a depth of around 1 to 30 meters below the surface. These ocean areas are usually offshore reefs that are near major coastlines.
Coral Habitats
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Brain coral is also an important habitat for other marine organisms. Algae and urchins, for instance, live among brain coral; in exchange, the coral might receive nutrients from waste products, energy from photosynthetic algae or protection against small creatures that could do it harm. Furthermore, the marine biodiversity that reef environments create is some of the richest in the world.
Threats to the Habitat
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The habitats of brain coral are often threatened by fisheries, which drag the bottom of the ocean floor and destroy much of the environment that brain coral and other organisms who live in the habitat depend upon. Silt, chemicals and landfill produced along nearby coastlines also threaten the brain coral habitat.
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References
- Photo Credit brain coral black and white image by Paul Retherford from Fotolia.com
