Coral Reef Conservation Project (Exhibition)
The Coral Reef Conservation Project is a year long project that focuses on learning about coral and coral bleaching and utilizing scientific tests done by students to find more about the affects of specific environmental stressors on coral species.
What is coral?
Coral is an organism that lives in tropical waters around the world. Coral belongs to the same phylum as jellyfish, Cnidaria, meaning that coral is related to jellyfish and all of its relatives.
Coral is an animal, a plant, and a rock. The animal part of the coral is the coral polyp. The plant part is the symbiotic algae that lives in the coral. The rock is the calcium carbonate skeleton that the coral builds upon.
A coral polyp is the individual organism that lives on the coral skeleton. They usually live in colonies of hundreds of polyps on the coral.
The symbiotic algae that lives on corals is called zooxanthellae. The zooxanthellae has a symbiotic relationship with the coral polyp called mutualism meaning that both organisms benefit from each other. Zooxanthellae benefits the coral by providing food for it through photosynthesis. Coral benefits the symbiotic algae by providing shelter for the organism
The calcium carbonate structure is the skeleton that holds and supports the polyp colonies. This structure is built upon by the coral polyps for many years and usually grows about an inch a year.
What is coral?
Coral is an organism that lives in tropical waters around the world. Coral belongs to the same phylum as jellyfish, Cnidaria, meaning that coral is related to jellyfish and all of its relatives.
Coral is an animal, a plant, and a rock. The animal part of the coral is the coral polyp. The plant part is the symbiotic algae that lives in the coral. The rock is the calcium carbonate skeleton that the coral builds upon.
A coral polyp is the individual organism that lives on the coral skeleton. They usually live in colonies of hundreds of polyps on the coral.
The symbiotic algae that lives on corals is called zooxanthellae. The zooxanthellae has a symbiotic relationship with the coral polyp called mutualism meaning that both organisms benefit from each other. Zooxanthellae benefits the coral by providing food for it through photosynthesis. Coral benefits the symbiotic algae by providing shelter for the organism
The calcium carbonate structure is the skeleton that holds and supports the polyp colonies. This structure is built upon by the coral polyps for many years and usually grows about an inch a year.
My Coral Reef Conservation Group is Control Medium, Control meaning the type of parameter that our testing is and Medium being the factor for the tests. Being in the Control group means that we are testing or having our tank environment be more similar to the ideal habitat that coral lives in.
The first semester focused on the learning aspect of this project and involved education on coral reefs and coral species. This was the main focus for this project in Biology. In Environmental Engineering, the main focus for the Coral Reef Conservation project was to build the equipment needed to house the coral for testing (metal rack, sump, tank)
The second semester will focus on testing environmental factors that affect coral and finding the levels that show signs of stress in coral. These environmental factors are Light, Nitrates, Temperature, Feeding, and Control.
We will conduct tests that will record the levels of different environmental stressors that affect the living environment of the corals. The tests that will be measured are Salinity, Temperature, Dissolved Oxygen, Light, Turbitity, Alkalinity, pH, Calcium, Phosphate, Nitrate, Nitrite, and Ammonia. The tests will be performed using several different scientific instruments on a weekly basis and the corals will be monitored daily for signs of stress.
The coral species that we will be testing are Pacillopora damicornus, which is a species of califlower coral, Agaricia humilus, which grows in rounded colonies, and Acropora yongeii, which is a species of staghorn coral.
We will conduct tests that will record the levels of different environmental stressors that affect the living environment of the corals. The tests that will be measured are Salinity, Temperature, Dissolved Oxygen, Light, Turbitity, Alkalinity, pH, Calcium, Phosphate, Nitrate, Nitrite, and Ammonia. The tests will be performed using several different scientific instruments on a weekly basis and the corals will be monitored daily for signs of stress.
The coral species that we will be testing are Pacillopora damicornus, which is a species of califlower coral, Agaricia humilus, which grows in rounded colonies, and Acropora yongeii, which is a species of staghorn coral.