Climate Change effecting Coral Reef

 What is Coral Reef?

Coral Reefs are bright and colorful can be seen in tropical ocean water around the globe.
Beyond their beautiful appearance lie a significant appearance.
They may look like plants, but the Corals are animals, in fact, they made of tiny animals called polyps. This invertebrate can range from pinheads to the bigger the size of the football. Each Polyp consists of the soft saclike body with a mouth and covered with stinging tentacles to protect their soft body and add support, the Polyps secret limestone skeletons or canticles.

They are also a Mega builders Polyp canticle connect to one another creating a colony and act as a single organism. As colonies grow over hundreds and thousands of years they joined with other colonies and become reefs that grow hundreds of miles long. The largest Coral Reefs is Australia’s Great Barrier Reef which began growing 20 thousand years ago.

Coral Reef is some of the most diverse ecosystems on earth. They Cover less than 1 % of the ocean floor. It is a home of 25% of all marine creatures It has been estimated that 2 million species inhabit coral reefs rivaling the bio-diversity of the rainforest. The Reef provides a rich habitat that helps protect young fish when they grow.
Coral Reefs are translucent, and they get the vivid color from algae or ZOOXANTHELLAE living in the tissue the coral use their tentacles to catch their food most of the food come from the algae they have.

It also provides a window to the past as coral grow their limestone skeleton for layers similar to tree rings that vary in composition and thickness based on ocean condition at that time some coral reefs growing from thousands of years or even millions of years scientist can study this layers to reveal what the earth climate may have been like in the ancient past, unfortunately, climate change is putting Coral future in danger along with the millions of species that inhabit the reefs and the half billion people that rely on reef fish for food.
The threat to the coral reefs is the pollution from other factors which resulting Coral bleaching which transform them into the white skeleton.

Warming water results in prolonged Coral Bleaching that kill coral reefs leave them vulnerable to other threats without significant action on climate change our ocean could lose many colorful reefs by the end of the century.

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