Timeline: Coral

1 CE

(1) Brief description of your Keystone Species

By Google definition, coral is "a hard stony substance secreted by certain marine coelenterates as an external skeleton, typically forming large reefs in warm seas: "a coral reef"." Coral is an animal.

2

(2) Geographic location of your Keystone Species

"Most coral reefs are located in tropical shallow waters less than 50 meters deep, in the western regions of the Indian ocean, Pacific Ocean and Greater Caribbean." According to an online source, "Various species of corals are found in all oceans of the world, from the tropics to the polar regions. Reef-building corals are scattered throughout the tropical and subtropical Western Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans, generally within 30°N and 30°S latitudes."

3

(3) Habitat of your Keystone Species including a general description of its accompanying biome

Coral is the most diverse habitat in the world. Coral is only located in 1% of the world's oceans. However, it makes up about 25% of the ocean species. According to an online source, "The coral reef biome is one of the most important and distinctive types of biological communities found on Planet Earth. In terms of biodiversity, coral reefs are the richest of all marine biomes."

4

(4) Ecological role or your Keystone Species

Coral reefs serve a major part in the food chain just like everything else, they are within the marine ecosystem. Coral protects coastlines from the damaging effects of waves and tropical storms. They provide habitats and shelter for thousands of marine organisms. Coral help with nutrient recycling and provide nitrogen and essential nutrients for all in their food chain.

5

(5) An original, creative visual representation (hand drawn or digital) of your Keystone Species membership in a major food web

Food web in Photo.

6

(6) A brief description of at least 250 words that details out the ecological impact of the elimination of your Keystone Species from the major food web presented in requirement 4

Overall, in food webs, each individual thing is very crucial and can affect every other thing in the food web and beyond. One major threat to coral is fishing. Just like all things in a food web that impact each other, if fish are all being caught, the coral will be affected like the ripple effect. If coral were to go extinct, then any species that eat coral would then be affected and so on. Some species would however then not be getting eaten by the coral which would cause them to overpopulate.

Period: 7 to 7