Coral Reef Plants

Coral Reefs are not plants. Coral reefs are actually animals. While it may be true that coral reefs are animals, it does not remove plants from a coral reef ecosystem.

Coral reef plants are aquatic plants that can thrive in saline water. While significantly less popular and less attractive than corals and fish, coral ree plants perform an important role in the marine ecosystem. Coral reef plants make as the number one on the list on the diets of fish and other sea creatures. Sea grasses are very popular to dugongs, fish, and other smaller marine animals such as the prawn. The main type of plant found in a coral reef environment are algae and sea grasses. They provide the most basic type of food, and is the number one source of food supply in a marine ecosystem. The benefits of coral reef algae does not only end as being a food source for fish and marine animals. Research by Australian scientists suggest that algae help corals in coping with climate change. While the extensiveness of help attributed by these coral reef plants are yet to be proven, it is comforting to know that these coral algae could help corals in the adaptation to global warming.