Corals Feeding

Our first class in Bocas del Toro was the Biology of Corals. We spent our mornings diving in the Caribbean, learning to identify corals and certain diseases and our afternoons in a thankfully air conditioned classroom for lecture and lab.

The corals we are studying contain symbiotic algae and can therefore feed by two different processes. Autotrophy occurs during the day, when zooxanthellae convert sunlight into sugars. Glycerol, glucose and other simple sugars are transferred from these dinoflagellates to the coral host. This “junk food” does not supply all the necessary nutrients required by the corals for survival, so at night the corals switch to heterotrophy. They actively feed in order to obtain essential nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus.

In order to observe corals feeding, we went out on a night dive. Our main lesson was that few things can rival a dive in tropical waters on the night of a full moon. While my group intended to shoot some video of the polyps in action, there wasn’t much feeding occurring. We were able to get some pictures of other animals, however, and have posted them below for you to enjoy.









~Sarah
Photos by Ryan