29-428: See text Coralliidae , also known as precious corals, is a taxonomic family of soft corals belonging to the suborder Scleraxonia of the phylum Cnidaria . These sessile corals are one of the most dominant members of hard-bottomed benthic environments such as seamounts , canyons and continental shelves . From this coral family results 69 descendants in which each species plays a key role in forming habitats for
58-506: A choice of food. Coral fisheries impose detrimental effects on coral colonies within oceans around the world. Before the 1970s, fisheries involved extraction of coral using net attached dredges or small sailboats. However, by the 1970s, fisheries started to stray away from sail boats and began to utilize motorized boats that consisted of metal dredges much longer than those used prior to the 70s. These motorized boats were also capable of carrying much heavier weight aboard thus causing damage to
87-550: A complex life cycle including a motile phase when they are considered plankton and later characteristic sessile phase. Octocorals have existed at least since the Ordovician period, as shown by Maurits Lindström 's findings in the 1970s. Recent work suggesting that the Cambrian Pywackia may represent a Cambrian octocoral is disputed. Octocorals resemble the stony corals in general appearance and in
116-457: A consensus over time. The naming of families is codified by various international bodies using the following suffixes: The taxonomic term familia was first used by French botanist Pierre Magnol in his Prodromus historiae generalis plantarum, in quo familiae plantarum per tabulas disponuntur (1689) where he called the seventy-six groups of plants he recognised in his tables families ( familiae ). The concept of rank at that time
145-450: A continuous epidermis and perforated by numerous tiny channels. The channels interconnect the gastrovascular cavities of the polyps, allowing water and nutrients to flow freely between all the members of the colony. The skeletal material, called coenenchyme , is composed of living tissue secreted by numerous wandering amoebocytes . Although it is generally soft, in many species it is reinforced with calcareous or horny material. The polyp
174-446: A family, yet in the realm of plants, these classifications often rely on both the vegetative and reproductive characteristics of plant species. Taxonomists frequently hold varying perspectives on these descriptions, leading to a lack of widespread consensus within the scientific community for extended periods. The continual publication of new data and diverse opinions plays a crucial role in facilitating adjustments and ultimately reaching
203-404: A simple cup shaped body that consists of two layers of cells, sloping peripheral platforms and wide axial pits. Each of these members have 8 unpaired, pinnate and 8 mesenteries utilized for filter feeding and defense. All species have numerous calcareous skeletal elements called sclerites that can be found on the surface ranging from 3 mm to 5 mm, diverging in many directions. The endoskeleton
232-538: A variety of marine species. Due to their unique trait of possessing a red calcium carbonate skeleton, these corals can be harvested in order to create handcrafted amulets, jewelry and other valuable artifacts, giving rise to its reputed name of "precious corals". Correspondingly, members of this family are vulnerable to the negative impacts of overharvestation imposed by mass coral trade. Members of this family Coralliidae are also considered "soft corals" which are sedentary, colonial polypoids. Animals of this class have
261-456: Is a class of Anthozoa comprising over 3,000 species of marine organisms formed of colonial polyps with 8-fold symmetry. It includes the blue coral , soft corals , sea pens , and gorgonians (sea fans and sea whips) within three orders: Alcyonacea, Helioporacea, and Pennatulacea. These organisms have an internal skeleton secreted by mesoglea and polyps with eight tentacles and eight mesentaries. As with all cnidarians these organisms have
290-420: Is composed of tiny stick-like calcium carbonate rods that fuse together to form a rigid structure which may be colored red, pink, or white. Coralliidae exhibit two different distributions within a colony and their spacing across the colony surface. Corals can be either roughly equal in size and evenly distributed across the colony surface, or unevenly distributed and vary in size. However, the general trend observed
319-455: Is found in 32 genera, a trait estimated to have evolved 540 million years ago, the earliest timing of emergence of bioluminescence in the marine environment. Octocorallia is considered to be monophyletic , meaning that all contained species are descended from a common ancestor, but the relationships between subdivisions are not well known. The sea pens (Pennatulacea) and blue coral (Helioporacea) continue to be assigned separate orders , whereas
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#1732780933265348-458: Is known as the preparatory feeding position, giving rise to the raptorial manner of feeding observed in these corals. Once food is captured by the tentacles, it will flex toward the mouth, where the food will then be sucked into the pharynx. After the tentacle is free of the food particle, it will then be flexed outward and assume the preparatory feeding position again. In order to capture bigger prey like brine shrimp , several tentacles must repeat
377-464: Is largely embedded within the colonial skeleton, with only the uppermost surface, including the tentacles and mouth, projecting about the surface. The mouth is slit-like, with a single ciliated groove, or siphonoglyph , at one side to help control water flow. It opens into a tubular pharynx that projects down into a gastrovascular cavity that occupies the hollow interior. The pharynx is surrounded by eight radial partitions, or mesenteries , that divide
406-407: Is one of a proportionally positive relationship between coral colony age and polyp and height size. This family can be further classified, based upon their polyps distribution, into three genera based : Corallium , Hemicorallium , and Paracorallium : Species belonging to this family of Coralliidae typically inhabit tropical , subtropical and temperate oceans regions within oceans around
435-476: The Genera Plantarum of George Bentham and Joseph Dalton Hooker this word ordo was used for what now is given the rank of family. Families serve as valuable units for evolutionary, paleontological, and genetic studies due to their relatively greater stability compared to lower taxonomic levels like genera and species. Octocorallia Octocorallia (also known as Alcyonaria )
464-748: The Hemicorallium and Paracorallium genera can be found in abundance around the seamounts around Japan and China. Likewise, the corals of the genera Corallium are widespread along the Mediterranean and the neighboring Atlantic coasts and is primarily seen around the central and western basin. Whereas population tends to decrease in deeper water in the eastern basin and around the Canary Islands , southern Portugal and Cape Verde . The two places to date that have been reported to have high levels of species diversity and exploited populations are
493-554: The Mediterranean Sea and the adjacent Atlantic, together with the Northern Pacific Ocean . All polyps of the order Alcyonacea consists of tentacles and pinnules to capture food. The tentacles located on the coral lie in the same plane as the mesenteries, concave oral discs, but are bent slightly forward or backward. This orientation is beneficial in the feeding process as the tentacle(s) can enter what
522-463: The Mediterranean species releases planulae, a larval form of the coral. Reproductive behavior appears also differ with temperature with as reproductivity is seen at higher levels during the months of May to August. These soft corals have nematocysts and allelochemicals , sclerites and other protective mechanisms that make them rarely predated upon. Along with these defense systems, corals have low nutritional value, therefore making them unpreferable as
551-514: The book's morphological section, where he delved into discussions regarding the vegetative and generative aspects of plants. Subsequently, in French botanical publications, from Michel Adanson 's Familles naturelles des plantes (1763) and until the end of the 19th century, the word famille was used as a French equivalent of the Latin ordo (or ordo naturalis ). In zoology ,
580-595: The colony. Once fertilization takes place, the formation of a larval polyp known as a planula arises. This planula will then float around in the ocean for several days until it can attach to a hard surface and bud into a developing colony. These reproductive strategies may also change from location to location, as seen within the species of the Corallium genera C. rubrum . Within the Indo-Pacific Ocean, this species uses broadcast spawning to reproduce whereas
609-665: The coral colonies underneath leading to limited a supply of corals. Due to the slow growth period of these corals, they cannot keep up with the rates in which coral harvesting occurs by these fisheries resulting in overexploitation . One area that experienced this decline in fishing yields was the Mediterranean Ocean in the 1980s, and as a result the United Nations soon placed guidelines on coral harvestation and banned dredging for corals in 1994. However, recently data has shown ongoing declining population numbers of
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#1732780933265638-653: The corals, which prompted the EU and the US to include the family Corallidae in the CITES Appendix II in order to regulate its trade. Family (biology) Family ( Latin : familia , pl. : familiae ) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy . It is classified between order and genus . A family may be divided into subfamilies , which are intermediate ranks between
667-540: The family as a rank intermediate between order and genus was introduced by Pierre André Latreille in his Précis des caractères génériques des insectes, disposés dans un ordre naturel (1796). He used families (some of them were not named) in some but not in all his orders of "insects" (which then included all arthropods ). In nineteenth-century works such as the Prodromus of Augustin Pyramus de Candolle and
696-491: The ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae , but that family is commonly referred to as the "walnut family". The delineation of what constitutes a family— or whether a described family should be acknowledged— is established and decided upon by active taxonomists . There are not strict regulations for outlining or acknowledging
725-476: The raptorial manner of feeding in conjunction. Within this family of the order Alconycea, also known as Octocorallia , two types of sexual reproduction strategies can be seen. One strategy involves the process where corals release both sperm and eggs into the water in mass quantities and fertilize, a process also known as broadcast spawning . The other involves fertilization in or on a maternal colony, in which embryos are incubated either internally or externally of
754-409: The size of their polyps, but lack the distinctive stony skeleton. Also unlike the stony corals, each polyp has only eight tentacles, each of which is feather-like in shape, with numerous side-branches, or pinnules . Octocorals are colonial organisms, with numerous tiny polyps embedded in a soft matrix that forms the visible structure of the colony. The matrix is composed of mesogleal tissue, lined by
783-432: The upper part of the gastrovascular cavity into chambers, one of which connects to the hollow space inside each tentacle. The gonads are located near the base of each mesentery. Octocorals have high phenotypic plasticity from adapting to dynamic environments where temperature, pH, and other parameters are in constant flux and have shown high recruitment rates post-die-off events caused by el nino events. Bioluminescence
812-588: The world. Unlike corals which can be found in shallow waters, these precious corals can be found in greater depths of 60 to 2,000 meters (200 to 6,560 feet). Most species can be found in large numbers around the west and central Pacific, including the surrounding seas of New Caledonia, Taiwan, Japan and the Hawaiian Archipelago . Species diversity of this family of corals is decreased in the Atlantic, Indian, and eastern Pacific oceans. However, corals of
841-488: Was not yet settled, and in the preface to the Prodromus Magnol spoke of uniting his families into larger genera , which is far from how the term is used today. In his work Philosophia Botanica published in 1751, Carl Linnaeus employed the term familia to categorize significant plant groups such as trees , herbs , ferns , palms , and so on. Notably, he restricted the use of this term solely within
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