Coral resources of Kerala

Jasmine, S and Viswambharan, Divya (2022) Coral resources of Kerala. In: Bioresources and commercial utilization: trends, market, supplychain, and sustainability. Kerala State Biodiversity Board, Thiruvananthapuram, pp. 227-232. ISBN 978-93-5620-548-8

Text Kerala State Biodiversity Board_2022_Divya V.pdf Download (3MB)

Abstract

Coral reefs are marine ecosystems made of calcium carbonate structures which are mostly secreted by reef-building corals and encrusting macroalgae. These reefs occupy less than 0.1% of the marine world and provide habitat for wide variety of marine organisms including fishes. Corals are of two types, hard coral and soft corals.Hard corals come under the phylum Cnidaria and the class Anthozoa. Hard corals are commonly known as stony corals (scleractinians) as they produce a rigid skeleton made of aragonite which is basically Calcium carbonate. Due to the presence of hard skeletons, they form the primary or the keystone species in coral reefs.

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