Nov 19, 2025 · Our global ocean provides equally essential ecosystem services—including half of the oxygen we breathe—and coral reefs are among the primary sources of these services. A healthy reef …

Dec 19, 2025 · Reef-building corals create habitats for many other organisms. Coral reefs are highly diverse and unique around the world, providing shelter and sustenance for abundant fishes and other …

Dec 19, 2025 · Fish that inhabit a coral reef play essential roles in the reef ecosystem, and reefs without fish struggle to recover from bleaching or other events that damage the coral.

Healthy coral reefs are magnets for marine life, rivaling only rainforests for the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems. Here's a sampling of reef animals.

Oct 30, 2013 · And in a new study, Apprill and colleagues identified throngs of bacteria living within coral tissues. “We are looking at the coral complex like a superorganism,” she said: All the various life …

May 16, 2025 · A coral reef in Jardines de la Reina, Cuba, where reef water microbial sampling has been employed to examine coral reef ecosystem health. (Photo by Amy Apprill, ©Woods Hole …

Dec 19, 2025 · Stressors can affect organisms living on the reef or they can affect the corals, themselves. When corals die, other organisms must relocate or struggle to survive.

May 18, 2023 · “By recording the sounds of a healthy reef and playing them back to coral larvae, maybe we can get them to settle somewhere they normally wouldn’t—on a damaged reef in need of …

Nov 12, 2018 · A thriving coral reef community at Hotsarihie, Republic of Palau. A research team led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution identified a detailed mechanism showing how ocean …

Jun 16, 2022 · Coral probiotics Just like humans host beneficial bacteria that help us absorb nutrients and fight pathogens, microbes help corals metabolize, build immunity, and withstand spikes in water …