{"id":77721,"date":"2025-12-13T13:57:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T08:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=77721"},"modified":"2025-12-13T15:07:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T09:37:58","slug":"hard-corals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/hard-corals\/","title":{"rendered":"Hard Corals"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Hard Corals Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A major new assessment by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN) has reported a dramatic decline in hard coral populations across the Caribbean.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Hard Corals<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hard corals, also known <\/span><b>as stony corals,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are marine animals that build the limestone frameworks upon which reefs form.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They grow in colonies and are often <\/span><b>referred to as \u201creef-building corals.\u201d<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Key Features of Hard Corals<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are composed of <\/span><b>thousands of tiny polyps<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that <\/span><b>secrete calcium carbonate.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hard corals create skeletons out of calcium carbonate, a hard substance that eventually becomes rock.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over time, this rock builds up to <\/span><b>form the foundation of a coral reef<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and provides a structure upon which baby corals can settle.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These corals depend upon <\/span><b>tiny algae called zooxanthellae<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that live inside them.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They share a <\/span><b>symbiotic relationship<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (the corals provide the zooxanthellae with shelter, and in return, the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/corals\/\" target=\"_blank\">zooxanthellae<\/a><\/strong> provide the corals with food).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Threats to Hard Corals<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Bleaching events<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> driven by extreme heat<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: It is spread across 30 countries which is causing unprecedented mortality of corals.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Losses of key herbivores<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> such as the Diadema sea urchin have fuelled an 85% surge in macroalgae.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source:<\/b> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.downtoearth.org.in\/climate-change\/caribbean-coral-reefs-have-halved-since-1980s-as-heat-disease-intensify\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">DTE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hard Corals also known as stony corals, are marine animals that build the limestone frameworks upon which reefs form. Read more about Hard Corals, Key Features, Threats, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":77703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4187],"class_list":{"0":"post-77721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-hard-corals","9":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}