Soft coral, also known as Alcyonacea, do not produce a rigid calcium carbonate skeleton and do not form reefs, though they are present in a reef ecosystems. Soft corals are also mostly colonial; what appears to be a single large organism is actually a colony of individual polyps combined to form a larger structure (NOAA, 2023).
In Indonesia, rapid dominance of soft corals has been associated with degradation caused by destructive fishing practices (Fox et al., 2003). Hence, an alternative state is hypothesized wherein octocorals dominate coral reefs after a disturbance (Nörstrom et al., 2009), although this may not always be the case. The ecological roles of octocorals remain greatly understudied. In areas where scleractinian corals do not dominate, such as in deep reefs, gorgonians may contribute to structural complexity providing potential habitats for other marine organisms (Slattery and Gochfeld, 2016).
· Photographic sampling: Jue Lalas · Photogrammetric processing: Torcuato Pulido Mantas
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