A new study has revealed why coral reefs can thrive in seemingly nutrient poor water, a phenomenon that has fascinated scientists since Charles Darwin.
A new study led by the University of Southampton in the UK has revealed why coral reefs can thrive in seemingly nutrient poor water, a phenomenon that has fascinated scientists since Charles Darwin.
He continues:"When Charles Darwin set sail on the HMS Beagle, he considered himself a geologist and during his voyage through tropical seas, quickly became interested in where and why coral reefs are formed. Darwin correctly predicted how the subsidence of the Earth's crust and the steady upward growth of corals interact to form vast reef structures. However, the biological mechanisms behind this vigorous growth remained unstudied.
Dr Loreto Mardones-Velozo, researcher in the Coral Reef Laboratory who conducted key experiments, adds:"One would expect that animals die or stop growing if they don't eat. However, the corals looked perfectly happy and grew rapidly if we kept them in water with elevated levels of dissolved inorganic nutrients."The researchers used a specifically labelled chemical compound to track the movement of the essential nutrient nitrogen between the partners of the symbiosis.
Professor Jörg Wiedenmann of the University of Southampton adds:"We used 10 different coral species to quantify how the symbiont population grew along with their hosts. Using mathematical models of the symbiont growth, we could show that the corals digest the excess part of their symbiont population to harvest nutrients for their growth. Our data suggest that most symbiotic corals can supplement their nutrition through such a 'vegetarian diet'.
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Vegetarian diet of corals explains age-old mystery dating back to DarwinA new study led by the University of Southampton in the UK has revealed why coral reefs can thrive in seemingly nutrient-poor water, a phenomenon that has fascinated scientists since Charles Darwin.
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