Coral reefs. Seas with coral reefs The most species-rich coral reef
The bright and amazing underwater kingdom of Egypt is famous all over the world. divers from different countries they keep photos and memories of diving in the Red Sea and tell that they saw corals of rare beauty in Egypt.
All the riches of the Red Sea are national treasure Egypt. Causing harm to fauna or flora, you can run into a large fine or other serious punishment.
Near many hotels, corals are very close to the shore. There are a lot of their species - about 150. They come in different colors and shapes - round, flat, with branches. By the way, colored corals are always alive, and dead coral reefs have a white tint.
What are corals
Corals belong to the class of invertebrates. Coral polyps live at great depths in warm waters, their food is plankton. They are able to live in the sea if the temperature in it is above 20 degrees. In addition to reefs, you can find coral islands - large accumulations of coral skeletons.
The best corals in Egypt
In Egypt, there are places worth visiting to admire the best corals. These include, for example, South Sinai, Ras Mohammed National Park with three diving areas, or Shark Reef, an underwater mountain whose top is visible above the water. It is famous for its sheer wall, where you can see the best types of corals - plate, gorgon and head corals. The Dedelus Reef and the Marsa Alam resort are also famous for corals - hotels on this coast are proud of their almost untouched coral kingdom, which allows you to see a variety of marine life. There is a popular diving school in this area of Egypt.
Also famous coral reefs are Abu Dabbab, Shaab Samadai, Shaab Sharm and others.
The most beautiful and interesting reefs are found in the following places in Hurghada:
- reserve "Smol Giftun" with coral gardens;
- Abu Ramada Hulk with a sheer wall and underwater caves;
- the reefs of El Fanadir and Carless.
In Sharm el-Sheikh, one can distinguish the bays of Ras Um Sid and Sharks Bay. In addition, in Egypt you can go on an excursion to the coral islands - Tiran Island, Skulistoy Island, Brothers Island.
Egypt hotels with coral reefs
In Hurghada, not all hotels have a coral reef near the beach. The best hotels where you can admire corals are Iberotel Makadi Beach, Carols Makadi Resort, Magic Life Kalawy Imperial.
But almost all hotels in Egypt, located in Sharks Bay, are famous for their beautiful coral reefs.
coral danger
The main danger is fraught with coral sponges. They are poisonous and you can get health problems after touching them, up to a fever.
On most beaches in Egypt, you need to wear special shoes - safety slippers, sold everywhere - in shops, shops, supermarkets. These slippers are easy and safe to swim in. To avoid trouble, follow these guidelines.
- Do not step on the corals - you can slip or hurt yourself.
- Do not touch them - sponges will immediately release arrows with poison.
Only souvenirs made from shells and corals are allowed to be taken out of Egypt. Be sure to keep the receipt issued upon purchase.
Living sea corals are strictly prohibited from being exported from the country. You should not even pick up something on the shore - only the purchase of souvenirs is legal.
Coral reefs are the equivalent of underwater forests. Twenty-five percent of all marine life lives in coral reefs. The combination of plant life and colorful marine fish makes these sites a favorite diving spot for scuba divers. Large coral reefs, such as the Great Barrier Reef, are actually made up of many smaller reefs that are connected into a single ecosystem.
Reed Bank
This reef is located in the Philippines, its area is 8.866 square kilometers. This wonder of nature is located in the South China Sea.
Chagos Archipelago
The Chagos Archipelago in the Maldives covers an area of 12,000 sq. km. It is the second largest atoll in the world.
Saia de Mala
Saia de Mala in Indian Ocean covers an area of 40,000 square kilometers. These are the largest flooded banks in the world. This ridge connects the Seychelles and Mauritius along the Mascarene Plateau. Along with its coral reefs, the marine habitat includes pastures for green turtles and breeding grounds for blue whales. 
Zongsha Islands
Located in the South China Sea. This atoll is 80 kilometers long and covers an area of 6,448 square kilometers. This atoll is a disputed territory between the People's Republic of China, Taiwan and the Philippines. 
Reef Andros
Andros is a barrier reef in the Bahamas that stretches for more than 200 kilometers. The island lies along the edge of an oceanic crevice known as Ocean's Tongue. The reef widens down along the crevice to a depth of 6,000 feet instead of lying flat along the ocean floor. 
Florida reef
This is a reef system around the coast of Florida that extends from the Atlantic Ocean into the Gulf of Mexico near Key West. This reef system is approximately 7,000 years old and is 322 kilometers long. 
mesoamerican reef
The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System extends along the east coast of Central America. From its northern point - the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, to the southern coast of Honduras, the reef reaches a total of 943 kilometers. 
Barrier reef of New Caledonia
This coral reef is almost 1,500 kilometers long and is located near the former French colony of New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean. Some parts of the reef have been damaged by nickel mining, but overall the health of this reef is quite normal. 
red sea reef
Coral reef of the Red Sea from the coasts of Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia approximately 5,000 - 7,000 years. Ten percent of the 1,200 species found on this reef live in this area alone. The Red Sea coral reef includes the Dahab Blue Hole, one of the most popular and dangerous dive sites in the world. 
Great Barrier Reef
The largest and most famous coral reef is the Great Barrier Reef. Over 2,500 kilometers long, it covers an area of 348,000 square kilometers and is home to more than 400 marine species. It is also one of Australia's most prominent tourist attractions. Unfortunately, the reef is under threat from pollution and fishing. 
Coral reefs are calcareous organogenic geological structures formed by colonial coral polyps and some species of algae that can extract lime from sea water.
Coral reefs are fantastically beautiful and the most "densely populated" ecosystems of the oceans. The biomass of benthic invertebrates and fish in them is estimated at hundreds of grams per square meter sea bottom. The total number of species on coral reefs can reach one million or even more.
The reef ecosystem owes such a vibrant life to unicellular algae (symbiont algae) living in corals, whose photosynthetic activity does not stop throughout the year.
The first corals on Earth, tabulates, appeared in the Ordovician period of the Paleozoic era, about 450 million years ago. Together with stromatoporid sponges, they formed the basis of reef structures.
Over the course of their history, corals have repeatedly experienced periods of decline and mass death- The climate has changed, the level of the World Ocean has repeatedly risen and fallen. But neither the changing climate, nor the lowering or rising of the ocean level led to the complete and final death of reef-forming corals - they adapted to new conditions. A balanced reef ecosystem has great restoration potential.
In 1997-1998, there was an anomalous increase in the temperature of the surface waters of the tropical zone of the World Ocean, which led to the mass death of corals in the vast waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Then, in the coastal regions of Bahrain, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Singapore and near Tanzania, up to 95% of all corals in shallow reef zones died. In other coastal zones of the tropical belt, from 20 to 70% of corals underwent the same fate. In the early 2000s, the tragedy repeated itself twice, affecting especially the central and southern parts of Pacific Ocean, and by the middle of the 2000s, according to scientists, a little less than half of the previously existing reefs remained on Earth.
But not in all reef areas the situation is so catastrophic. For example, in the Maldives, the coral cover has completely recovered due to the rapid growth of acroporids (acropor corals), whose growth reaches 20-25 cm per year.
A different picture is observed in the region of Bahrain and Sri Lanka, where the reefs were under very strong anthropogenic pressure.
Thus, not sharp climatic fluctuations, but a high level of anthropogenic pressure leads to fatal consequences for this ecosystem.
What are coral reefs?
Coral reefs are massive deposits of calcite (limestone) formed from the skeletal remains of some colonial marine organisms - plants and animals - among which madrepore corals and coralline algae stand out. In addition to these two dominant groups of reef-forming organisms, the proportion of other animal and plant species, such as mollusks, sponges, foraminifera, and some green algae, is also significant in the composition of reefs.
There are three main types of interconnected coral reefs: fringing, barrier and atolls.
Fringing, or coastal, reefs
Located along a recently drained or stable coast. Such a reef is a terrace-like platform at sea level or somewhat below it, extending from the shore and often ending in an elevated edge, strongly indented by channels, from which the reef slope drops rather steeply into the water, and then abruptly breaks off to great depths. Corals grow fastest on the outer slope of the reef and very slowly on the shallow platform.
barrier reefs
They often surround individual islands, but are located at some distance from the coast, separated from it by a strait or a calm, medium-deep lagoon. The largest and most famous is the Great Barrier Reef - a complex system of reefs with a length of more than 1600 km, located along the east coast of Australia.
atolls
Ring-shaped reefs surrounding lagoons, inside which there are no land areas. They are ring-shaped with an inner shallow lagoon; annular with one or more ring breaks through which tidal waters enter the lagoon; in the form of a half ring, a quarter ring or annular, flooded during high tides; or in the form of giant rings, consisting of individual small atoll-like reefs, fringing huge lagoons.
coral varieties
In general, hard corals that form a reef can be divided into branched brittle corals (madrepore corals) and massive, rocky corals (brain and mendrin corals). Branching corals tend to be found on shallow and level bottoms. They come in blue, lavender, purple, red, pink, light green and yellow. Sometimes the tops have a contrasting color, for example, green branches with purple tops.
Brain corals can reach over 4 meters in diameter. They live at greater depths than the branched ones. The surface of brain corals is covered with sinuous cracks. The color is dominated by brown, sometimes combined with green. Dense porites form a kind of bowl, the base of which consists of dead corals, and living corals are located at the edges. The edges grow, increasing the diameter of the bowl, which can reach 8 m. Living porous colonies are painted in a pale purple color, the tentacles of the polyps are greenish-gray.
At the bottom of the bays, individual mushroom corals are sometimes found. Their lower flat part fits snugly to the bottom, and the upper one consists of vertical plates converging in the center of the circle. Mushroom coral, unlike branching and massive hard corals, which are colonies, is an independent living organism. Only one polyp lives in each such coral, the tentacles of which reach a length of 7.5 cm. Mushroom corals are painted in greenish and brownish colors. The coloration is retained even when the polyp retracts the tentacles.
Coral reefs are large underwater formations consisting of the skeletons of coral polyps, which are marine invertebrates. A squad of reef-building coral polyps called stony or stony corals extract calcium carbonate from seawater and create a hard, durable exoskeleton to protect their soft, baggy bodies.
Each individual coral is called a polyp. The new coral polyps live on the calcium carbonate exoskeletons of their ancestors, and after death they add another exoskeleton to the existing structure. Over the centuries, the coral reef grows with each new polyp and over time becomes a large and visible structure underwater.
Corals can be seen everywhere from the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska to warm tropical waters. caribbean. The largest coral reefs can be seen in the clear, shallow subtropical and tropical ocean waters, where they grow rapidly. The length of the largest of the coral reef systems, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, exceeds 2,400 kilometers.
coral life
According to the non-profit environmental organization Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL), there are hundreds of species of corals in the world. Corals come in many shapes and colors, from round and curled brain corals (brain corals), which resemble the human brain, to tall, elegant eight-pointed Muricea corals (sea whips) and sea fans (sea fans), which look like intricate, brightly colored corals. trees or plants.
Pictured: Stunning new coral species in Polynesia.
Corals belong to the type of cnidarians (Cnidaria). This group also includes jellyfish, anemones, Portuguese man o' war and other marine animals. Although each individual animal is considered a polyp, corals are often described as colonies of thousands of polyps.
Corals feed in two different ways: some species can catch small marine organisms such as fish and plankton using stinging tentacles on the outer edges of their bodies. However, according to the Agency for Protection environment United States (US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)) most corals maintain a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship with marine algae known as zooxanthellae (zooxanthellae).
These algae live inside the body of the coral polyp and, through photosynthesis, produce food for themselves and for the polyp. The polyps, in turn, provide the algae with a home and carbon dioxide. In addition, zooxanthellae give corals their vibrant colors - most coral polyp bodies are transparent and colorless.
Some coral species, such as brain corals, are hermaphrodites and produce both eggs and sperm at the same time. They breed in mass coral spawning, which in some species occurs only once a year on a certain night.
Other species, such as the elkhorn coral, are dioecious and form all-female or all-male colonies. Among these coral colonies, all polyps in one particular colony produce only sperm. To continue the breeding process, they rely on a neighboring colony that produces only eggs.
Photo of corals taken on a reef behind Ofu Island, home of the American Samoa National Park.
coral reef world
Most of the significant coral reefs that exist today began to form 5,000-10,000 years ago, according to CORAL. These formations mainly exist in warm, shallow waters, where sufficient sunlight penetrates, which is necessary for algae, which provide food for coral polyps.
Coral reefs cover less than 1 percent of the ocean floor - collectively they would cover an area of approximately 285,000 square kilometers, close to the size of the state of Nevada. However, they are among the most productive and diverse ecosystems on earth.
Approximately 25 percent of all known marine species depend on coral reefs for food, habitat and reproduction. Corals are sometimes referred to as the "rainforests of the sea" because of their biodiversity. They are home to over 4,000 fish species, 700 coral species, and many thousands of other plants and animals.
However, according to experts, their lives are in imminent danger.
Coral reefs in danger
According to scientists at the Hopkins Marine Station at Stanford University, coral reefs are vital marine environment habitat on which many species of ocean animals depend. In addition, they provide people with direct economic benefits of approximately 30 billion annually through food, fisheries and tourism.
However, coral reefs are threatened by several dangers at once. The first danger is the growing acidification of the ocean environment, caused by the fact that the oceans absorb a huge amount of carbon dioxide(CO2) released into the atmosphere from the combustion of fossil fuels. This limits the ability of corals to produce the calcium carbonate exoskeletons they depend on for their habitat.
Water pollution also negatively affects corals. Agricultural pesticides and fertilizers, oil and gasoline, sewage discharges and soil spills from eroded land into the ocean are disrupting the delicate relationship that exists between the plants, corals and other animals that make up the reef ecosystem.
As ocean temperatures rise due to global warming, coral polyps are rejecting the zooxanthellae they depend on for food. As soon as the zooxanthellae disappear, the corals also lose their bright colors, and all that remains of them is a white exoskeleton. This process is called coral bleaching. According to the non-profit environmental organization Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL), corals that have undergone bleaching usually die off.
In addition, fishing activities such as cyanide fishing (which uses cyanide to make fish easier to catch), explosive fishing, and overfishing with trawlers can destroy thousands of years of coral in minutes. reef.
“Overfishing, ocean acidification and ocean pollution are slowly killing coral reefs,” said Roger Bradbury, an environmentalist at the Australian national university(Australian National University), located in Canberra (Canberra), in an interview with the New York Times. “Each of these factors individually is quite capable of causing the destruction of coral reefs around the world, but in combination this destruction is guaranteed.”
