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Coral Competition
| Coral reefscapes appear pleasant, peaceful and placid to an unsuspecting visiting diver. In actual fact, there's an entire war zone out there. Coral reefs are crammed so full of marine life that the various inhabitants will do just about whatever it takes to claw an edge out over the rest. In scientific terms, we call these efforts 'competition'. Even though they do not move about and generally seem rather docile, hard corals compete with each other too. As each hard coral colony grows, it will inevitably contact and impinge on the the space of another colony. And especially since they are sessile animals, the tactics used can be pretty interesting. |
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| Consider this interaction between a Pectinia sp. and a Platygyra sp. on a coral reef at St John's Island one balmy February night... C | |
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| The Pectinia is obviously getting too close for the Platygyra's liking, which responds by sending out sweeper tentacles to sting its neighbour. | Hard corals can either attack using stinging tentacles or evert their guts to digest their competitor where it stands! |
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A closer look at the sweeper tentacles |
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