Vocab Quiz 5 Flashcards
Branching Form
Branching corals are characterized by having numerous branches, usually with secondary branches. Acropora is an example.
Coral Bleaching
The expulsion of zooxanthellae from corals, resulting in coral tissue losing its color and appearing to be the white color of the coral skeleton beneath the living tissue
Coral Triangle
marine area located in the western Pacific Ocean. Named for its staggering number of corals, the region nurtures six of the world’s seven marine turtle species and more than 2000 species of reef fish.
Coralline algae
Red algae that secrete a skeleton of calcium carbonate
Massive Form
Massive corals are characteristically ball- or boulder-shaped and relatively slow-growing.
Sedimentation
deposition of particles and chemical precipitation to form deposits in water
Sibling species
closely related species that are so similar that they are nearly indistinguishable morphologically
Turbidity
the weight of particulate matter per unit volume of seawater
White Band Disease
coral disease, perhaps caused by bacterium, that results in an advancing white band in the colony
White plague
a complex scleractinian coral disease, sometimes associated with a coccoid bacterium
White pox disease
x
Yellow Band disease
x
Zooxanthellea
a group of dinoflagellates living endosymbiotically in association with one of a variety of invertebrate groups
Lagoon
a stretch of salt water separated from the sea by a low sandbank or coral reef