During my most recent visit to London, I took advantage of
the wonderful Natural History Museum’s exhibition “Coral Reefs: Secret Cities
of the Sea”.
As well as an opportunity to traverse the great hall and
it’s ever-popular diplodocus skeleton, this visit had two ulterior motives.
Firstly, Micronesia is known to have exquisite coral reefs. They are in
particularly good condition due to its isolation and lack of tourists (Kosrae
also has stringent laws against boat anchoring on the reef). So I was hoping to
become a little more educated prior to going out there.
The second impetus was that my best friend ‘just happens’ to
be a tropical marine biologist who’s been teaching me about corals ever since
I’ve known her and I thought it might win me some brownie points (!).
For those interested in learning about coral reef facts,
read on.
Many people, like myself until recently, think corals are
plants. Others might believe they are non-living structures. Some have never really
thought about it before. But corals are in fact animals (that happen to look a lot like plants). They are living,
breathing, reproducing animals just like us humans. But of course with many
differences.
They are made up of lots of little tube-like structures,
usually in a hexagonal pattern, that are built up, unit by unit, on reefs (ridges
of rock in the ocean) into the large structures we see when snorkelling or
diving. They come in all shapes and sizes: a branching tree, a big dish, tubes
of rigatoni-esque pasta, and the rather entertaining brain coral. See here for
lots of pictures (albeit just of Caribbean corals).
Corals unfortunately cannot make food for themselves, so
they live symbiotically (‘in harmony’) with algae called…exciting and
complicated word alert…zooxanthellae. The algae live on the coral and make food
by photosynthesis which is then shared with the coral so it can live. Happy
days. However, if the waters get too warm or there is too much sunlight, the
algae pick up sticks and ‘fall off’ the corals. This means the coral won’t last
very long (would you, without any
food?!) and eventually dies. This is ‘coral bleaching’.
Corals are a safe-haven for fish (refer to the opening 10 minutes
of Pixar’s Finding Nemo for evidence of this), a hiding ground for predator
species, a filtration service for nearshore waters and generally support a
hugely diverse marine ecosystem.
If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t find corals in all the
world’s seas and oceans it’s because they like warm water that has fast
currents. Those who are more adept at geography will know much more about
this than me, but I understand this limits them to places such as Australia
(the Great Barrier Reef being the most famous of all reefs in the world), the
Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Caribbean and, most importantly for this
conversation, Polynesia.
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/corals/media/supp_coral05a.html
In earlier posts and my video I highlight that FSM (Federal
States of Micronesia) is made up of 607 islands. However, a large number of
these are things called atolls. At the exhibition, I finally came to understand
what exactly one is.
An atoll can be thought of as a ring of reef. Therefore not
really being a conventional ‘island’. The reef forms from the sinking of
inactive volcanoes over many thousands of years. As the volcano sinks into the
ocean, it draws a deep lagoon with it and so a ring of reef remains around a cavernous
pool of water.
http://undsci.berkeley.edu/images/us101/atollphoto.jpg
Kosrae island itself has interesting reef structure. It of
course is not an atoll but does have a reef that surrounds the island and has an extra outer ‘fringining’
reef. This outer reef protects the inner one from strong sea currents and
storms meaning that the ones near shore are in pristine condition.
Kosrae has many dedicated diving and snorkelling sites, and
they take great care in looking after their coral reef and the associated
marine life. Apparently the water is exceptionally clear too and you can
stumble across WW2 ship and plane wreck remains in some bays (!). Hawksbill
turtles, reef sharks (I’m told they’re not scary) and thousands of colourful
tropical fish will also be on my list of things to try and catch a glimpse of.
Interestingly, we owe a lot to Mr Charles Darwin, famed for
his book The Origin of Species, for coral reef discoveries. It was Darwin who
was among the first to detail the locations of coral reefs, particularly those
in the Pacific, and explain how they (and atolls) are formed.
What remarkable ecology he must have seen when exploring
these previously unseen coral reefs, and I count myself very lucky that I will
hopefully get to see a bit of this fascinating and dynamic marine world and
follow in his footsteps on the bays of Kosrae.
I’ll be hoping to share what I see, plus lots of pictures,
with you while I’m out there.
For more info on corals and the exhibition, check out these
websites:
http://www.coral-reef-info.com/
family friendly peach airlines eh!!!!!!!!!xx
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