Coral - the oldest marine creature

Deep-sea corals are the oldest bony species, a new study found 4265-year-old corals off Hawaii.

Deep-sea corals, currently threatened by climate change and pollution like shallow and shallow water corals (mountains rise from the seabed but not to the water surface) and continental margins at about 1,000 to 10,000 feet deep (300 to 3,000 meters).

Coral reefs are home to many other marine organisms, and are hot spots for marine biodiversity. The largest reef system in the world is the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland, Australia. Other large reefs can be found in the Red Sea, along the coasts of Mexico and Belize, the Bahamas and the Maldives.

Samples of two corals in the study, gold coral (Gerardia sp.) And deep-water black coral (Leiopathes sp.), Were collected off the Hawaiian sea by submersible.

Older age

Previous assessments of the age of corals, by counting annual growth rings (previously thought), show the maximum life of Gerardia sp. in Hawaii about 70 years.

Radioactive carbon studies have identified the age of Gerardia species between 2,000 and 3,000 years old in the Pacific and Atlantic. The same results are also determined in some Leiopathes samples.

Brendan Roark of Texas A&M University, along with colleagues, made carbon measurements away from the skeleton of a specimen from Hawaii and showed a similar age: about 2,742 years for Gerardia and 4,265 for Leiopathes.

The authors write: 'These results show that Leiopathes is the oldest known marine bone creature, and with our current knowledge, creature living into the oldest known cluster'. Their findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences magazine on March 23.

The results of carbon radioactivity analysis show that deep sea corals with skeleton of Gerardia sp. Eat organic particles, and life can last thousands of years. (Photo: Hawaii Undersea Laboratory (HURL) of NOAA)

This age shows that the bones of corals grow much slower than what we think, just a few micrometers a year (one micrometer is the diameter of a human blood cell).

Of course, tiny polyps live inside bones just a few years old, meaning that they will continue to be replaced for centuries or millennia while bones continue to grow around them.

Call for conservation

The authors emphasize that the Hawaiian deep sea leveling, which plays an important role in the diversification of invertebrates and invertebrates, is threatened by the use of dredging nets, harvesting or jewelry making. other commercial fishing activities.

Seawater is warming and the acidified sea (the result of seawater absorbing carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere) can also affect coral survivability. A 2008 study assessed that increased acidity could wipe out most corals by 2050. These conditions could also make corals more vulnerable to disease attacks.

If corals disappear, the organism community that lives on them disappears. Caribbean rapids have suffered a great deal of damage in the last 15 years, according to the March 19 issue of Current Biology.

Roark and his colleagues said the slow growth rate makes coral conservation more important, because it takes a lot of time to replace what has been lost. The study is funded by the National Marine and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation.