TAG: GS-3: ECOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT
CONTEXT: Scientists recently discovered the world’s largest coral near the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean, stretching across two basketball courts. This nearly 300-year-old coral highlights the resilience of marine life amid a global coral crisis, offering hope for conservation efforts.
EXPLANATION:
More about news:
- A massive coral, the largest ever discovered, has been found near the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The coral stretches over an area larger than two basketball courts.
- Initially mistaken for a shipwreck, it is believed to be about 300 years old. Unlike coral reefs made of multiple colonies, this coral is a single, solitary structure.
- It is an essential habitat for marine species, from tiny crustaceans to larger fish.
- The discovery is significant amid the global coral crisis, which has been worsened by climate change. The coral’s resilience offers hope for the survival of similar ecosystems.
- Scientists hope the discovery will inspire more research and conservation efforts to protect coral habitats.
About Corals:
- Corals are essentially sessile animals, permanently attaching themselves to the ocean floor. Corals share a symbiotic relationship with single-celled algae called zooxanthellae.
- The algae provide the coral with food and nutrients, which they make through photosynthesis, using the sun’s light.
- They use their tiny tentacle-like hands to catch food from the water and sweep it into their mouth.
- Each coral animal is known as a polyp and lives in groups of hundreds to thousands of genetically identical polyps that form a ‘colony’.
- Corals are primarily classified as either hard coral or soft coral. The hard corals are the architects of coral reefs complex three-dimensional structures built over thousands of years.
- Hard corals have stony skeletons made of limestone produced by coral polyps. When polyps die, their skeletons are left behind and used as foundations for new polyps.
- Coral reefs, also called “rainforests of the sea”, have existed on the Earth for nearly 450 million years.
Significance of corals:
- Coral reefs have a crucial role in marine ecosystems. Thousands of marine species can be found living on one reef.
- Compounds discovered in coral reef animals and plants are used to develop drugs for cancer, arthritis, bacterial infections, viruses, and other diseases.
- Coral reefs are home to thousands of species of marine life, including fish, mollusks, and invertebrates. The variety of coral reefs helps them adapt to changing temperatures and environmental conditions.
- Coral reefs are culturally important to indigenous people around the world.
What is Coral Bleaching?
- It happens when corals experience stress in their environment due to changes in temperature, pollution or high levels of ocean acidity.
- Under stressed conditions, the zooxanthellae or food-producing algae living inside coral polyps, start producing reactive oxygen species, which are not beneficial to the corals.
- So, the corals expel the colour-giving zooxanthellae from their polyps, which exposes their pale white exoskeleton, giving the corals a bleached appearance.
- This also ends the symbiotic relationship that helps the corals to survive and grow.
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