Welcome back to St. Maarten Nature Foundation’s educational series on our natural environment! This week, we will be discussing corals and coral reefs, like those that can be found in the waters of St. Maarten!
To help you understand, we have included the definitions of the words in bold at the end of this article.
Coral Reefs are very unique ecosystems that support a huge variety and amount of life. While corals cover less than one per cent of the ocean, almost 25 per cent of all marine life live on coral reefs! These are beautiful and incredibly important for our planet.
Corals can vary in size, shape and colour! When you think of corals, you might picture one coral head –these are often thought to be one organism. While this is one species of coral, it is actually made up of hundreds of thousands of coral polyps which are rooted in place.
Most people don’t know that these coral polyps are actually classified as animals, not plants! Several species of corals can make up a coral reef. Due to the differences in conditions, the coral reefs can vary drastically between different areas (corals in the Caribbean can be different from those in Australia for instance).
These tiny coral polyps are very sensitive animals, many of which are endangered or even critically endangered! Lots of things can affect the health of corals, including water quality, temperature, storms, plastic pollution, diseases and human impact.
So why are corals classified as animals rather than plants? While these polyps look like plants to us, they are actually very complex and unique animals. One thing that makes them so exceptional is the way they eat! Corals rely on two sources of energy (food) to survive.
First, they use very small tentacle-like arms to reach out and grab tiny animals called zooplankton to eat. Second, they rely on the algae that can be found living in their cells to preform photosynthesis for additional energy!
Corals can come in many different forms. There are in fact more than 2,500 different species of corals around the world. Even though they might seem far away from us right now, these delicate and diverse ecosystems have a massive impact on our lives!
Here are just three of the many reasons coral reefs are important to us:
They provide protection against storm surge during bad weather!
- Many of the fish we like to eat live on the reef and without it, they would disappear.
- Tourists from all over the world travel to St. Maarten to snorkel and dive along our coral reefs. This provides jobs and income for those of us who live here!
Throughout this series about corals, you will learn more about the coral reefs of St. Maarten, what is affecting their health, and what you can do to help protect them!
Ecosystems - A community of living and non-living things within a certain area.
Organism - An individual animal or plant.
Species - A category of living things that share similar characteristics and can produce offspring.
Endangered - Facing a high risk of extinction (no longer existing) in the wild.
Critically Endangered - Facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.
Photosynthesis - The process that plants use to turn light from the sun into energy they need to live.
