Food Sector

Interested in learning about the Food Web of the Reef?  Well, come visit the Food Sector and learn where the food comes from.

Coral reef inhabitants have widely varied diets.  Motile invertebrates may be predatory, like fish.  Others are scavengers of decomposing material, or they can be "filter-feeders" by any number of mechanisms.  At various early stages of their life, the diet of reef organisms may require planktonic organisms, and they, themselves, may be planktonic at some part of their life. Some of these animals (and all algae) are also capable of acquiring nutrition through the absorption (or direct uptake) of dissolved organic and inorganic nutrients.  Normally, the levels of these substances on a coral reef are very low, and such nutrients are often a limiting aspect of the growth of any one life form.  Because of the number of species present on a coral reef, most any food source is often a source of fierce competition, even if not directly.  Often, simple competition for space is enough to limit nutrient availability.

Nutrients enter a coral reef from a variety of sources.  They can arrive from freshwater or terrestrial sources; rivers and rain can both wash land based nutrients out to sea. Decomposers (mainly bacteria and associated flora and fauna) break down waste material in the water, on the reef, and, primarily, in the soft sediments.  The result of their presence and action is not only a food source in and of itself, but provides raw material for channeling back into the food chain, largely through the benthic algae and phytoplankton.

Coral reef food sources, then, are largely produced by the ocean.  Bacteria, detritus, phytoplankton, zooplankton, small benthic fauna, mucus, and dissolved organic and inorganic material of various types and sizes are what comprise the majority of food on a coral reef.

Come for a visit, but be warned, you may get hungry, so come visit one of our delicious restaurants afterward.