Marine researchers and scientists now have a new guide to help them carry out their work to accurately identify and classify Western Australia’s hard corals. Hard corals, or scleractinian corals, are a diverse group of threatened species that are incredibly important to the growth and productivity of coral reef ecosystems in general.

Larval production and recruitment underpin the maintenance of coral populations,
but these early life history stages are vulnerable to extreme variation in physical
conditions. Environmental managers aim to minimise human impacts during
significant periods of larval production and recruitment on reefs, but doing so
requires knowledge of the modes and timing of coral reproduction. Most corals are
hermaphroditic or gonochoric, with a brooding or broadcast spawning mode of
reproduction. Brooding corals are a significant component of some reefs and
produce larvae over consecutive months. Broadcast spawning corals are more
common and display considerable variation in their patterns of spawning
among reefs. Highly synchronous spawning can occur on reefs around Australia,
particularly on the Great Barrier Reef. On Australia’s remote north-west coast
there have been fewer studies of coral reproduction.

Ningaloo Marine Park extends southward from North West Cape along 230 km of coastline. In most places, the seaward margin of the reef is generally less than 3 km from the shoreline, with a sandy lagoon between the reef edge and the shoreline.

During this first AIMS survey of fish and coral communities within the Ningaloo Reef system, 26 sites were visited. Systematic surveys of coral and fish community structure were carried out at five locations along the length of the Ningaloo Reef (separated by 10s of km). Within each region, surveys were made at two sites on both the outer reef slope and within the shallow lagoon.

In response to a request from the Western Australian Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM), surveys were also carried out at six sites within the Ningaloo Dugong Sanctuary.

Coral reefs are like underwater cities built from living animals (coral polyps) which usually live together in colonies. Hard corals, which are the only types of corals to form coral reefs, produce limestone skeletons. Amazingly, they do this with the help of tiny microscopic plants that actually live inside them. These plants give the corals their colours and capture energy from the sun by photosynthesis - just like plants in your garden! The sugars and oils they produce are also used by the corals.