''Favia fragrum'' is a species of
colonial stony coral
Scleractinia, also called stony corals or hard corals, are marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria that build themselves a hard skeleton. The individual animals are known as polyps and have a cylindrical body crowned by an oral disc in which a mo ...
in the family
Mussidae
Mussidae is a family of stony coral in the order Scleractinia. Following a taxonomic revision in 2012, the family is now restricted to species found in the Atlantic Ocean, with Pacific species transferred to the new family Lobophylliidae. Many ...
. It is commonly known as the golfball coral and is found in tropical waters on either side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Description
The golfball coral is small and usually hemispherical in shape with a number of large
corallite
A corallite is the skeletal cup, formed by an individual stony coral polyp, in which the polyp sits and into which it can retract. The cup is composed of aragonite, a crystalline form of calcium carbonate, and is secreted by the polyp. Corallit ...
s packed closely together, but It can occur in groups or may occasionally grow as an encrusting coral. The corallites contain one to three
polyps and are normally round but can become elongated into an oval shape when the polyps are budding and a new corallite is being formed. The corallite walls usually consist of four complete whorls of
septa
SEPTA, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, is a regional public transportation authority that operates bus, rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolleybus services for nearly four million people througho ...
and do not project appreciably from the surface of the coral. The
costae of different corallites are distinct from one another. The colour is usually yellow or pale brown.
[''Favia fragum'' (Esper 1797)]
CoralPedia. Retrieved 2012-02-20.[Golfball coral (Favia fragum)]
Marine Species Identification Portal. Retrieved 2012-02-20.
Distribution
The golfball coral is found in the tropical Atlantic Ocean at depths down to with its range extending from the west coast of equatorial Africa to South America, the Caribbean Sea and the southern United States. It is an inconspicuous species and occurs on
coral reef
A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in group ...
s, on rocks, in
seagrass meadow
A seagrass meadow or seagrass bed is an underwater ecosystem formed by seagrasses. Seagrasses are marine (saltwater) plants found in shallow coastal waters and in the brackish waters of estuaries. Seagrasses are flowering plants with stems and ...
s and among
seaweed
Seaweed, or macroalgae, refers to thousands of species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae. The term includes some types of ''Rhodophyta'' (red), '' Phaeophyta'' (brown) and ''Chlorophyta'' (green) macroalgae. Seaweed species such as ...
.
[ The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species lists it as being of "least concern". This is because it is widespread and common and a loss of habitat from coral reef destruction is unlikely to impact it significantly.][
]
Ecology
Where degraded reefs have abundant macroalgae, it has been shown experimentally that coral larvae will settle in as great quantities on the seaweed as it will on the rubble substrate. Researchers showed that larvae of ''Favia fragum'' settled on '' Halimeda opuntia'', an ephemeral alga that is unsuitable for post-settlement survival, and this may have significant consequences for the recruitment of corals on degraded reefs.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q3333967
Faviinae
Corals described in 1795