Habitats - Coral Reefs

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Buy Books about Coral Reefs

Coral Reefs are a phenomenon of tropical waters and in North America are restricted to southern Florida. It's the policy of Nearctica to restrict ourselves to North America, but we just couldn't resist going a little further afield for this fascinating subject.

General.

Conservation and Monitoring.

Wildlife.

GENERAL

Jurassic Reef Park. Reinhold Leinfelder. Coral reefs and their equivalents have been around for a long time. This great site examines some prehistoric reefs and in the process gives us a lot of information about modern coral reefs. Learn about the corals that form the reefs and the animals that live on them. You'll find extensive comparisons between modern and fossil coral reef assemblages. Highly recommended.

Hawaii Coral Reef Network. A great web site on coral reefs. Included here is a magnificent section on the marine life of Hawaii. You'll also find slide shows on the ecology of the coral reef (under education), reef news, reefs in Hawaii, and much more. Highly recommended.

Corals and Coral Reefs. Sea World, Busch Garden. A great, non-technical introduction to corals and coral reefs. Some of the topics covered are the different kinds of corals, their habitats and distribution, diet, reef ecosystems, and conservation. Recommended.

Coral Reef Bibliography. International Year of the Reef. An extensive bibliography primarily of books related to coral reefs.

An Introduction to Coral Reefs. University of the Virgin Islands. A series of short text articles on different aspects of coral reefs.

Reef Zone Tour. Digital Studios. A brief introduction to coral reefs as part of a commercial site for a cd-rom entitled "Coral Kingdom".

Coral Reefs and Mangroves of the World. World Conservation Monitoring Centre. Introductions to coral reefs and mangrove swamps as well as conservation information for each habitat.

Corals and Coral Reefs. Coral reefs are built by small animals called coral polyps. Learn about the coral animals and how they build reefs. Sections include classification, distribution, morphology, behavior, diet, conservation, and a bibliography of books for young readers.

CONSERVATION AND MONITORING

Coral Reef Alliance. This site contains fact sheets on reef conservation and a collection of photographs related to reefs.

Reef Relief. Reef Relief is a reef conservation organization. You'll find a little basic information on reefs here including maps of the coral reefs around the world. Most of the site, however, is dedicated to reef conservation and the dangers that threaten them.

State of the Reefs: Regional and Global Perspectives. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A background paper on the current conservation status of coral reefs around the world.

Coral Health and Monitoring Program. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This site is dedicated to all sorts of information related to coral reef health, conservation, and research. Included here are articles on monitoring coral reefs, extensive physical data on reefs and keys in southern Florida and the Caribbean, an extensive set of links to coral sites on the web, addresses for researchers, and much more. Technical.

The Non-Destructive Coral Health Monitoring Home Page. Christopher Mattia. Information related to monitoring coral reefs.

Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Basic and technical information from this marine coral reef park in the Florida Keys.

Coral Reef Protection. Environmental Protection Agency. From this site you can download a manual in Adobe Acrobat format (pdf) entitled "Development of Biological Criteria for Coral Reef Ecosystem Assessment".

South Florida Restoration Electronic Library. Environmental Protection Agency. A collection of links related to conservation in southern Florida including a few on coral reefs.

Global Coral Reef Alliance. A number of articles, maps, and databases related to the conservation of coral reefs.

Coral Reefs. Mother Jones. An advocacy site on the degredation and conservation of coral reefs.

Coral Realm. There is good news and bad news about this site. The good news is that the site is an incredible collection of articles, photographs, and information about coral reefs, their animals, and marine life in general. The bad news is that you have to pay a subscription to use it except for the promotional material at the beginning. Never the less if you are really into marine life, check it out to see if you want to take the plunge.

WILDLIFE

Marine Life. Hawaii Coral Reef Network. Yes, Hawaii is not part of North America, but this is such a beautiful web site, we just had to include it. The pages of Marine Life are photographs and information on the fish, seaweeds, and invertebrates of the Hawaiian coral reefs. Highly recommended.

Neogene Marine Biota of Tropical America. Department of Geology, University of Iowa. A wonderful, if technical, site on the invertebrate animals of the Caribbean. Groups covered include the mollusks, bryozoans, corals, foraminifera, and ostracodes. The information available for each group is variable, but sometimes includes keys to species and genera and a wealth of photographs. Technical, but highly recommended.

Keoki's Fish Corner. Keoki and Yuko Stender. Sure, the title says fish (and there are fish pictures), but the nicest part of this web site is a wealth of photographs of the coral species of the reefs of Hawaii.

Fins. Fish Information Service. Mark Rosenstein. Although this site is directed to the aquarium hobby trade, you will find a huge collection of photographs of marine fish and invertebrates here including many of the common coral reef fish currently being kept in aquariums.

The Coral Disease Page. H.B. McCarty and Esther Peters. A technical, but great, on the diseases of corals. The site includes information, pictures, and descriptions of the individual diseases. There is also a key to coral diseases. Technical but recommended.

Reef Environmental Education Foundation. This foundation's web site has a very nice gallery of reef fish photographs and information about a large number of tropical fish. The organization is located in southern Florida and the fish may be from the region, but infortunately they do not say. However, the site also has very extensive distributional data for individual species in a separate segment of the site.

Coral Reef Fishes. Luiz Rocha. An introduction to the fishes living on coral reefs with some information about their diversity, feeding, reproduction, and endangered species.

Coral Spawning. Marine Laboratory, University of Guam. This site is about the spawning of coral and contains a Quicktime Movie and a series of regular photographs of the process. In addition there is an illustrated article on reproduction in coral. Recommended.

Fisheye View Cam. Quantum Leep Network. A real time camera on a coral reef. You'll also find an archive of previous pictures and a QuickTime movie.