Coral reefs, commonly found in tropical coastal areas, are the world’s most complex marine ecosystems. But how do deeperwater corals differ from easier-to-study reefs in shallower waters?

They usually are less than a centimeter in diameter, but they can build colonies sometimes running kilometers in length. How do corals manage these massive feats of construction, and what part do single-cell algae play?

New coral taxa Tetraporinus siedlecka sp. n. and Roemeripora aspinosa major ssp. n. are erected from the Lower Permian (Sakmarian and Artinskian) Treskelodden Formation of Hornsund area, Spitsbergen and Syringopora sp. similar to S. subreticulata Nowiński, 1991 are described. Studies on stable isotope ratios of carbon and oxygen in the skeletons of tabulate and rugose corals from Hyrnefjellet and Treskelen areas show that these organism did not frac­tion the isotopes to much. The differences in isotope fractionation, both for carbon and oxygen, reached 2 ‰ comparable to the concurring brachiopods, accepted as reference level.

Rafy koralowe są najbardziej złożonymi ekosystemami morskimi, występują powszechne w tropikalnych strefach przybrzeżnych. Czy grozi im wyginięcie, tak jak to się stało w czasie wielkiego kryzysu 260 mln lat temu?

Zrozumienie przemian geologicznych, które zaszły w plejstocenie, jest kluczowe dla zrozumienia dzisiejszego rozmieszczenia roślin i zwierząt.