The bulk of primary production that occurs on or near a coral reef is a result of: symbiotic zooxanthellae.
A coral reef is a solid structure that forms from the accumulation of stony corals.
- Hermatypic corals form massive structures in shallow areas of tropical and subtropical seas, favored by the symbiotic relationship that they maintain with zooxanthellae contained in the tissue of polyps.
- Zooxanthellae, being photosynthetic organisms, capture CO2 dissolved in the medium to transform it into sugars, and the total rate at which CO2 is captured by all photosynthetic organisms in the ecosystem is known as the gross primary productivity.
- Corals and zooxanthellae carry out respiration, where the energy of the sugars produced in photosynthesis is produced and releases CO2, the difference between gross primary productivity and respiration is the net primary productivity.
Therefore, we can conclude that zooxanthellae capture dissolved CO2 in the medium to transform it into sugars, the total rate at which CO2 is captured by all photosynthetic organisms is the gross primary productivity.
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