Problems of studying coral-reef ecosystems

Abstract

The term "reef" has still to be defined in ecological terms. It is essential to discuss and to classify the most significant characteristics of coral-reef ecosystems. Coral reefs involve a number of interdependent problems of semantics, planeteary and regional geotectonics, paleo geography, geomorphology, ecology, hydrobiology and zoogeography. From an ecological point of view, the solution to these problems requires analyzing the correlation between the notions "biocoenosis" and "ecosystem". We may regard a coral reef either as a "super organism" or as a complex aggregation of almost mutually independent organisms, more or less randomly composed during evolution. The pros and cons, as well as contraditions between these two possibilities can be largely setteled by means of historical anlyses. © 1977 Biologische Anstalt Helgoland.