When it comes to feeding, corals have a few tricks up their sleeve. Most of their nutrients come from microscopic algae living inside of them, but if those algae aren’t creating enough sustenance, corals can use their tentacles to grab and eat tiny prey swimming nearby.
When it comes to feeding, corals have a few tricks up their sleeve. Most of their nutrients come from microscopic algae living inside of them, but if those algae aren’t creating enough sustenance, corals can use their tentacles to grab and eat tiny prey swimming nearby.
A new study from researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the University of New Mexico, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography is revealing that more of corals’ nutrients come from this sort of hunting than previously expected, information that may help predict the fate of coral reefs as global ocean temperatures rise. The study published Sept. 17, 2019, in the journal Functional Ecology.
“When you have a heat wave, corals start bleaching. Symbiotic algae, which live inside corals and provide them with most of their nutrients, are expelled from their body. If corals stay bleached for too long they basically starve to death,” says Michael Fox, a postdoctoral scholar at WHOI and lead author on the paper. “But if a coral has the opportunity to eat a lot before it bleaches or while it is bleached, it can survive off its fat stores long enough to regain those symbionts when water temperatures cool off. If we can better understand when, where, or why corals are eating, we may be able to understand why they survive better in some places than others during future bleaching events.”
Read more at: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Michael Fox, WHOI postdoctoral scholar and lead author of the study, sampling coral on Pulo Anna Island, Palau. (Photo Credit: Photo courtesy of Brian Zgliczynski)
