These days we get slashed by store-bought fins, sliced with boat anchors, and suffocated by sewage. Ours is not an easy life, and it's not getting any easier. If corals could talk, that's what they might say, and this article is dedicated to explaining why. First, let's define coral. When you think of a coral reef, you might picture the exotic creatures that live there like lobsters, eels, and angelfish.
Corals are colonies of tiny, delicate animals called polyps.
Now here's the plant part. The coral host layer provides carbon dioxide and nutrients that the zooxanthellae use in photosynthesis , the light-driven energy process in which plants use carbon dioxide and water to produce carbohydrates and oxygen. The coral uses the oxygen for respiration, and the carbohydrates for much of its daily energy supply. Rarely growing more than a half inch per year, these individual skeletons fuse over time to form a reef. Just as we need clean air to breathe and function properly, corals need clear, clean water to make a living.