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C. M. YONOE
position has recently been admirably expresaed by Ladd (1961) who
states that “ The building of reefs is primarily a biological process, but
geological processes such as erosion and sedimentation enter as soon as
the first reef organism is damaged by wave action. Thereafter, reef
building is a combination of organic and inorganic growth. Ultimately
the effects spread to many other scientific fields.” It may be added that
one effect of erosion and sedimentation is to produce new environments
for life in which corals and other reef organisms have become adapted.
There is no sphere in which the continual interplay between animal and
environment is so well displayed or more worth while studying.
In what follows no attempt has been made to summarize all recent
literature which has biological implications if only because the whole of
the voluminous geological and geographical work on reefs, especially
on the atolls of the Marshall Islands, has such implications. Attention
has been restricted to what, in the author’s personal opinion, appear to
be the more significant aspects, or implications, of recent biological
studies, these ranging from taxonomy to productivity. The occasion
has also been taken to point out lines along which research might
profitably be directed.
By corals we are here considering those coelenterates which are
epifaunistic and form massive calcareous skeletons, namely members
of the Hydrozoa (notably the Nilleporina) and of the Anthozoa (the
octocorallian Heliopora and Tubipora and the Scleractinia or Madreporaria). Attention is further restricted to the hermatypic (i.e. reefbuilding) species which live in shallow tropical waters. As living organisms these cannot be considered without relation to the highly complex
marine communities or coral reefs of which they are the most c h r a c h r -
istic, if not always the most numerous or even the most important,
members. These reefs may be divided into fringing reefs, barrier reefs,
atolls and also, as suggested by Wells (1957), patch reefs. The latter
would apparently cover all but the first three categories, i.e. anything
from a coral patch in an atoll lagoon to much more complex coral
formations such as the low wooded islands in the lagoon channels
within barrier reefs or the ring-shaped faros originally described in
association with the atolls of the Maldives. While knowledge of the mode
of growth of corals and of the effect on this of the forces of the physical
and biological environment is essential to our understanding of coral
reefs, the origin of the platforms on which reefs have grown np-and
which constitutes the real “coral reef problem”-lies within the province
of the geologist and the geographer and is not a matter with which a
biologist is directly concerned. It will not receive more than inaidental
mention here.
C. M. YONOE
position has recently been admirably expresaed by Ladd (1961) who
states that “ The building of reefs is primarily a biological process, but
geological processes such as erosion and sedimentation enter as soon as
the first reef organism is damaged by wave action. Thereafter, reef
building is a combination of organic and inorganic growth. Ultimately
the effects spread to many other scientific fields.” It may be added that
one effect of erosion and sedimentation is to produce new environments
for life in which corals and other reef organisms have become adapted.
There is no sphere in which the continual interplay between animal and
environment is so well displayed or more worth while studying.
In what follows no attempt has been made to summarize all recent
literature which has biological implications if only because the whole of
the voluminous geological and geographical work on reefs, especially
on the atolls of the Marshall Islands, has such implications. Attention
has been restricted to what, in the author’s personal opinion, appear to
be the more significant aspects, or implications, of recent biological
studies, these ranging from taxonomy to productivity. The occasion
has also been taken to point out lines along which research might
profitably be directed.
By corals we are here considering those coelenterates which are
epifaunistic and form massive calcareous skeletons, namely members
of the Hydrozoa (notably the Nilleporina) and of the Anthozoa (the
octocorallian Heliopora and Tubipora and the Scleractinia or Madreporaria). Attention is further restricted to the hermatypic (i.e. reefbuilding) species which live in shallow tropical waters. As living organisms these cannot be considered without relation to the highly complex
marine communities or coral reefs of which they are the most c h r a c h r -
istic, if not always the most numerous or even the most important,
members. These reefs may be divided into fringing reefs, barrier reefs,
atolls and also, as suggested by Wells (1957), patch reefs. The latter
would apparently cover all but the first three categories, i.e. anything
from a coral patch in an atoll lagoon to much more complex coral
formations such as the low wooded islands in the lagoon channels
within barrier reefs or the ring-shaped faros originally described in
association with the atolls of the Maldives. While knowledge of the mode
of growth of corals and of the effect on this of the forces of the physical
and biological environment is essential to our understanding of coral
reefs, the origin of the platforms on which reefs have grown np-and
which constitutes the real “coral reef problem”-lies within the province
of the geologist and the geographer and is not a matter with which a
biologist is directly concerned. It will not receive more than inaidental
mention here.