AIMS - BIG BANK SHOALS OF THE TIMOR SEA - Coral ecosystems

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Big Bank Shoals of the Timor Sea
An environmental resource atlas

Biological Environment

Epi-benthic communities of the Big Bank Shoals

CORAL ECOSYSTEMS

Competition

Competition between two corals (E. Lovell).

Inevitably, colony growth leads to potential overlap with neighbours. Some species possess sweeper tentacles which can reach out and inhibit the growth of an adjacent competitor, although a variety of more subtle strategies have been noted. Like plants, corals can outgrow a competitor and shade them from the light. At a superficial level it may appear that fast growing species should be able to out-compete ones that grow more slowly.

However, the structure of branching corals makes them more susceptible to physical damage and predation and so their high growth rates do not ensure competitive success.

Figure 24: Major features of a coral polyp.

Competitive success can also be viewed in terms of the relative abilities of species to occupy space by asexual reproduction of clones. Asexual reproduction allows corals to rapidly produce copies of themselves that settle close to the parent. A coral may out-compete its neighbours by filling all available substrate with these genetically identical copies of itself. In this way one set of genes (a genotype) may compete against another genotype of the same species, or a soft coral may out-compete a hard coral.

Consequently, coral reefs are held in a series of complex interactions that allow no single species to completely dominate. The result is a highly diverse community of invertebrates competing for light, food and space.

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