Image Gallery

ALL ALBUMS » Gallery » 20451
Underwater photograph of the urchin Diadema on a coral head taken before 1983. In the summer of 1983 most of these urchins died throughout the Caribbean. Notice how the Diadema have kept the surface of this dead coral free of algae. Today, without the browsing of these algae-eating urchins, dead coral surfaces such as this are coated with mats of fleshy alga. Such growths retard the establishment of coral larvae. SeaWiFS images by NASA; photos courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey
(5 of 5)
Underwater photograph of the urchin Diadema on a coral head taken before 1983. In the summer of 1983 most of these urchins died throughout the Caribbean. Notice how the Diadema have kept the surface of this dead coral free of algae. Today, without the browsing of these algae-eating urchins, dead coral surfaces such as this are coated with mats of fleshy alga. Such growths retard the establishment of coral larvae. SeaWiFS images by NASA; photos courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey