Polyps as pixels: Innovative technique maps biochemistry of coral reefs Date: September 28, 2023 Source: University of Hawaii at Manoa Summary: Using an innovative new approach to sampling corals ...

C oral reefs, often called the "rainforests of the sea," are among the most diverse and vital ecosystems on Earth. Made up of tiny organisms known as polyps, these reefs provide food, shelter, and ...

There are other stresses to Hawaii’s reefs. One is erosion. Explains Ben Charo, a conservation scientist at the Coral Reef Alliance (CRA), Hawaii once had sugar cane and pineapple plantations.

image: Close-up of coral shows individual polyps, which the research team sampled in this study. view more . Credit: Ty Roach. ... 1 millimeter-wide polyps to 100 meter-long reefs.

Tropical coral reefs encrust the coastlines of islands and continents near Earth’s equator but this zone, which has offered sufficient light and warmth for corals to evolve over hundreds of millions ...

Coral reefs are in global peril, ... The polyps secrete a hard skeleton made of calcium carbonate, and skeleton by skeleton, they build an undersea city.

Each vertex (corner) represents a polyp, and the lines connecting them form a patchwork of triangles. Llabrés wrote rules to govern what happens to hexacones as the digital coral expands. One rule ...

A record 60 percent of the planet’s coral reef habitat has experienced enough heat to cause bleaching in the last year, ... When those polyps die, they leave their skeletons behind.

Over the last 50 years, more than half of all hard corals — colonies of tiny animals called polyps that grow skeletons and build coral reefs — have disappeared in the Caribbean.