BACKGROUND The transition from planktonic planula to sessile adult corals occurs at low frequencies and post settlement mortality is extremely high. Herbivores promote settlement by reducing algal competition. This study investigates whether invertebrate herbivory might be modulated by other ecological factors such as substrata variations and coral species identity. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FIND...

This study investigates stable isotope signatures of five species of Silurian and Devonian deep-water, ahermatypic rugose corals, providing new insights into isotopic fractionation effects exhibited by Palaeozoic rugosans, and possible role of diagenetic processes in modifying their original isotopic signals. To minimize the influence of intraskeletal cements on the observed signatures, the ana...

Mounding corals survive bleaching events in greater numbers than branching corals. However, no study to date has determined the underlying physiological and biogeochemical trait(s) that are responsible for mounding coral holobiont resilience to bleaching. Furthermore, the potential of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) as a source of fixed carbon to bleached corals has never been determined. Here, ...

BACKGROUND Climate warming is causing environmental change making both marine and terrestrial organisms, and even humans, more susceptible to emerging diseases. Coral reefs are among the most impacted ecosystems by climate stress, and immunity of corals, the most ancient of metazoans, is poorly known. Although coral mortality due to infectious diseases and temperature-related stress is on the r...

The ocean is currently absorbing excess carbon from anthropogenic emissions, leading to reduced seawater-pH (termed ‘ocean acidification’). Instrumental records of ocean acidification are unavailable from well-ventilated areas of the deep ocean, necessitating proxy records to improve spatio-temporal understanding on the rate and magnitude of deep ocean acidification. Here we investigate boron, ...

Coral reef fishes are exploited without the knowledge of their sustainability and their possible effect in altering the community structure of a coral reef ecosystem. Alteration of the community structure could cause a decline in the health of coral reefs and its services. We documented the coral community structure, status of live corals and reef fish assemblages in Palk Bay at the reef fishin...

This study evaluates the accuracy of U/Th dates for young (6 a few thousand years old) reef corals, both living and fossil, and explores strategies for refining those dates. The high precision of the U/Th method (0 1^2%) for dating young corals is well-established. Earlier studies have demonstrated the method’s accuracy for select samples of known age. However, these studies have focused on typ...