An Experimental Study on the Carbon Flux within the Coral Community

Abstract

The flux of carbon within the coralline ecosystem has been a subject of great interest in the recent decades. So far several studies had been conducted to understand actual process of carbon transfer within this system and it is an elusive factor on science because of the complex process. An attempt had been made to delineate the source and sink of carbon within the coral ecosystem by establishing small experimental set up in the present study.  For these study, four experimental tanks, each consisted of a different community of coral ecosystem was set up in Pondicherry University, Port Blair, Andaman Islands, India. The Tank A was set up with a most prevalent sponge species Stylissa massa, in this part of the study area, Tank B consisted of sponge Lamellodysidea spp., Tank C consisted of macroalgae community i.e. of Padina spp. of an area of 620 cm2 and Tank D had a soft coral Sarcophyton spp. All these species were collected from Burmanallha, a region characterized by rich species diversity. The results indicated that the algal and sponge community provided carbon to support the growth of coral reefs. Coral utilized this carbon for their growth. It was also observed that fluctuation of environmental and physical parameters induced biological stress within the life forms resulted in the release of excess inorganic carbon to the surrounding water. Whenever, the opportunity were available this carbon was utilized by the system itself and managed full extent without any excess carbon.