Coral reefs serve as habitat for many marine creatures. It is also some of the most beautiful places, which is why many divers view them. Coral reefs though are in danger in many ways. Preserving is important, as corals might be older than previously thought.
A team of researchers has recently determined the age of some types of corals. Some of the corals have been found to be 5,000 years old. This makes corals to be the oldest animals today. The corals have been able to survive much changes in the world, including climate changes and changes in sea levels.
This has been the assessment of Iliana Baums, an associate professor of Biology at Penn State. She also said that it shows corals to be resilient, as they can survive even with changes in the climate or sea level. But even if it has survived much, the corals are now declining due to exploitation and others that affect it. Some corals are now among those on the endangered species list in the US.
Studying the age of corals has been different in the past, as Baums recounts. Previously to study their age, the skeletons of corals or the colony size would be used as a gauge for its age. She observed though that corals reproduce by fragmentation, wherein a small piece would break off to form a new colony. This would then make it seem like smaller colonies are younger, even though they came from a much older coral.
Baums and her colleagues though have used a genetic approach in determining the age of corals, according to Penn State News. Through this method the age is determined when the egg and sperm first met. Once that has been established, they then began to trace the mutations it has gone into over time.
While corals might have survived past changes, human activities today has changes that are much faster than it has been before, as Science Daily reports. That might be more than what corals can handle, as their ability to adapt to changes can have limits. There is no doubt though that corals might be older than previously thought, and this is the reason to keep them safe from environmental harm. Corals are also threatened by carbon dioxide in the sea, as a report states.
