''Goniopora tenuidens'' 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

Poritidae Poritidae is a family of stony corals. Members of the family are colonial hermatypic (reef-building) corals. They are variable in size and form but most are massive, laminar or ramose as well as branching and encrusting. The corallites are co ...

. It occurs in shallow water in the tropical Indo-Pacific region. The

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...

has assessed its conservation status as being of "

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

Description

Colonies A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their '' metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often or ...

of this species form solid hemispherical or irregular mounds. The

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 (the stony cups in which the polyps sit) are small and rounded, each having six palliform lobes (stony blades) on their inner margins. The polyps are of a distinctive appearance being of regular length and topped with a uniform bundle of tentacles. The colour of this coral may be bluish, green or brown and the tentacles may be tipped with white.

Distribution and habitat

''Goniopora tenuidens'' is native to the tropical Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean. Its range extends from

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

, the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

and the

Gulf of Aden The Gulf of Aden (; ) is a deepwater gulf of the Indian Ocean between Yemen to the north, the Arabian Sea to the east, Djibouti to the west, and the Guardafui Channel, the Socotra Archipelago, Puntland in Somalia and Somaliland to the south. ...

, through the western, central and eastern

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

to southeastern Asia, Indonesia, Japan and the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by South China, in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan island, Taiwan and northwestern Philippines (mainly Luz ...

, northern and eastern Australia and island groups in the western

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. It is found subtidally in various reef habitats and in lagoons, at depths down to about .

Ecology

''Goniopora tenuidens'' is one of several species of corals that are bioeroded by the sponge ''

Cliona orientalis ''Cliona orientalis'' is a species of demosponge in the family Clionaidae. It occurs in the Indo-Pacific region and is a bioeroding species, with various specialisations for living on and inside calcareous substrates such as massive corals and ...

'', which tunnels into its skeletal structure.

Status

This is a common species of coral with a wide range and a presumed large total population. It is more resistant than many corals to

bleaching Bleach is the generic name for any chemical product that is used industrially or domestically to remove color from (i.e. to whiten) fabric or fiber (in a process called bleaching) or to disinfect after cleaning. It often refers specifically t ...

and

coral disease Coral diseases are transmissible Pathogen, pathogens that cause the degradation of coral colonies. Coral cover in reef ecosystems has decreased significantly for a diverse set of reasons, ranging from variable environmental conditions to mechanical ...

s. The main threat faced by corals is destruction of their reef habitats, through

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

, with increased incidence of severe storms, and

ocean acidification Ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's ocean. Between 1950 and 2020, the average pH of the ocean surface fell from approximately 8.15 to 8.05. Carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the primary cause of ...

. Despite corals in the genus ''

Goniopora ''Goniopora'', commonly referred to as flowerpot coral or daisy coral, is a genus of colonial Scleractinia, stony coral found in lagoons and turbid water conditions. ''Goniopora'' have numerous daisy-like Polyp (zoology), polyps that extend o ...

'' often being collected for the aquarium trade, the

has assessed the conservation status of this species as being of "

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3946529 Poritidae Animals described in 1886 Cnidarians of the Indian Ocean Cnidarians of the Pacific Ocean