Coral reefs are hotspots of biodiversity. As they can withstand heavy storms, they offer many species a safe home, and at the same time, they protect densely populated coastal regions as they level out storm-driven waves. However, how can these reefs that are made up of often very fragile coral be so stable? A team of researchers from Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and the University of Bayreuth have now discovered that a very specific type of ‘cement’ is responsible for this—by forming a hard calcareous skeleton, coralline red algae stabilize the reefs, and have been doing so for at least 150 million years.
Click here for original story, The cement for coral reefs
Source: Phys.org