Elkhorn coral reaches its maximum size at 10 to 12 years old. Elkhorn coral’s branches can increase in length as fast as 2-4 inches per year. While a colony can persist for centuries, individual coral polyps usually live for 2 to 3 years. (NOAA Fisheries, 2002) Behavior. Elkhorn coral is a sessile, colonial species.
It is worth noting this essay will focus primarily on the impact of microbes on corals as organisms rather than the ecosystems of coral reefs.. dependent and culture-independent analyses reveal no prokaryotic community shifts or recovery of Serratia marcescens in Acropora palmata with white pox disease, FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 2014, Vol.Ocean acidification compromises recruitment success of the threatened caribbean coral acropora palmata.. If you are the original writer of this essay and no longer wish to have the essay published on the UK Essays website then please: Request the removal of this essay.Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Free and Open Access to Biodiversity Data.
White Band type II in Acropora cervicornis. There are two etiologies of white band disease, type I and type II. In type I, tissue destruction is associated with the moving front of the band. In type II, there is at times a bleached zone between the area of tissue degradation and the moving front.
Colour: Many colours, but most usually cream, brown, purple or blue (which may photograph purple) with blue or cream tips. Similar Species: Acropora gemmifera, which has small axial corallites and radial corallites increasing in length down branches. See also A.
Acropora palmata succeeds best at depth range of 3 m to 5 m. From the begining of the reef history in the Gulf of Mannar, the reefs were confined only in the shallow. The classification types and amount of damage caused by micro and macro borers are studied through thin section and SEM studies.
Keeping Acropora Corals Beautiful home reefs can be either a simple reef with hardier, less demanding animals, or a more complex reef with higher maintenance specimens. Stony corals are more demanding and take a more dedicated effort.
Maximum depth from Ref. 116012. Zooxanthellate (Ref. 116012).Found in shallow areas of high wave action, especially reef crests (Ref. 415) and submerged reef tops (Ref. 86439).Hermaphroditic (Ref. 113712).Mature gametes are shed into the coelenteron and spawned through the mouth.
Like other corals, Acropora corals are colonies of individual polyps, which are about 2 mm across and share tissue and a nerve net. The polyps can withdraw back into the coral in response to movement or disturbance by potential predators, but when undisturbed, they protrude slightly.
Species that build the physical structure of ecosystems often reproduce clonally, both in terrestrial (e.g., grasses, trees) and marine (e.g., corals, seagrasses) environments. The degree of clonality may vary over a species' range in accordance with the relative success of sexual and asexual recruitment.
In this photograph, we can see the branching elkhorn coral Acropora palmata (upper left), with arms showing strong orientation into an oscillatory current between left and right. In the right foreground is the mound-shaped coral Montastrea annularis. It is of great interest that such differently shaped corals can occur side by side.
The staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) is a branching, stony coral with cylindrical branches ranging from a few centimetres to over two metres in length and height. It occurs in back reef and fore reef environments from 0 to 30 m (0 to 98 ft) depth. The upper limit is defined by wave forces, and the lower limit is controlled by suspended sediments and light availability.
Another unique species of Acropora is the Palmata or more commonly referred to as the Elkhorn, it has very thick-plated branches. It is one of the largest growing colonies of all Acropora. Acropora comes in such a huge range of shapes and sizes which is what makes them so unique.
An Optical Remote-Sensing Evaluation of the Status of Acropora palmata in Vieques, Puerto Rico. The images were pre-processed to minimize noise and unsupervised classification was used to detect areas colonized by seagrass.. Their decline was to such an extent that both Acropora palmata and A. cervicornis were placed on the Candidate.
None of the three important keystone species (Acropora palmata, Acropora cervicornis, and Diadema antillarum) have shown much recovery over decadal time scales. In addition, continuing coral mortality from periodic acute events such as hurricanes, disease outbreaks, and bleaching events from ocean warming have added to the poor state of Caribbean coral populations and yielded a remnant coral.
The branching coral Acropora palmata is a foundation species of Caribbean reefs that has been decimated in recent decades by anthropogenic and natural stressors. Declines in population density and genotypic diversity likely reduce successful sexual reproduction in this self-incompatible hermaphrodite and might impede recovery.
Definition noun, plural: elkhorn corals A coral species that resembles the horns of an elk Supplement An elkhorn coral is a stony coral species. Its name is derived from its resemblance to the horns (antlers) of an elk.It is highly branched and structurally complex.