Bioerosion

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Bioerosion

Bioerosion describes the erosion

Erosion

For morphological image processing operations, see Erosion 'For use of in dermatopathology, see Erosion Erosion is the removal of solids in the natural environment....
of hard ocean substrate

Substrate (marine biology)

Stream substrate is the material that rests at the bottom of a stream. There are several classification guides. One is:*Mud ? Comprised of silt and clay....
s – and less often terrestrial

Terrestrial

Terrestrial refers to things having to do with the land or the Earth....
substrates – by living organisms by a number of mechanisms. Marine bioerosion can be caused by mollusks, polychaete worms

Polychaete

The Polychaeta or polychaetes are a class of annelid worms, generally marine. Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are made of chitin....
, phoronid

Phoronid

Phoronids , commonly known as horseshoe worms, are a relatively small animal phylum: twenty species are known, in two genera, Phoronis and Phoronopsis....
s, sponge

Sea sponge

Echinoderm

Echinoderms are a Phylum of Marine animals . Echinoderms are found at every ocean depth, from the intertidal zone to the abyssal zone.Aside from the problematic Arkarua, the first definitive members of the phylum appeared near the start of the Cambrian period....
s, and fish

Fish

A fish is any marine biology vertebrate animal that is typically ectothermic , covered with scale , and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins....
; it can occur on coastlines, on coral reef

Coral reef

Coral reefs are aragonite structures produced by living organisms. In most reefs the predominant organisms are colonial cnidarian that secrete an exoskeleton of calcium carbonate....
s, and on ship

Ship

A ship is a large watercraft that floats on water. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size. Ships may be found on lakes, seas, and rivers and they allow for a variety of activities, such as the ferry or cargo ships, fishing, cruise ship, Coast guard, and warship....
s; its mechanisms include biotic boring, drilling, rasping, and scraping. On dry land, bioerosion is typically performed by pioneer plants or plant-like organisms such as lichen

Lichen

Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiosis association of a fungus with a Photosynthesis partner , usually either a green algae or Cyanobacteria ....
, and mostly chemical (e.g.

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Encyclopedia

Bioerosion describes the erosion

Erosion

For morphological image processing operations, see Erosion 'For use of in dermatopathology, see Erosion Erosion is the removal of solids in the natural environment....
of hard ocean substrate

Substrate (marine biology)

Stream substrate is the material that rests at the bottom of a stream. There are several classification guides. One is:*Mud ? Comprised of silt and clay....
s – and less often terrestrial

Terrestrial

Polychaete

Phoronid

Phoronids , commonly known as horseshoe worms, are a relatively small animal phylum: twenty species are known, in two genera, Phoronis and Phoronopsis....
s, sponge

Sea sponge

Echinoderm

Fish

Coral reef

Ship

Lichen

Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiosis association of a fungus with a Photosynthesis partner , usually either a green algae or Cyanobacteria ....
, and mostly chemical (e.g. by acidic secretions on limestone

Limestone

File:Limestone Formation In Waitomo.jpgLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . The deposition of limestone strata is often a by-product and indicator of biological activity in the geology record....
) or mechanical (e.g. by root

Root

In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant body that typically lies below the surface of the soil. This is not always the case, however, since a root can also be aerial root or aerating ....
s growing into cracks) in nature.

Bioerosion of coral reefs generates the fine and white coral sand

Coral sand

Coral sand is sand of particles originating in tropical and sub-tropical Marine environments from bioerosion of limestone skeletal material of marine organisms....
characteristic of tropical islands. The coral is converted to sand by internal bioeroders such as algae

Algae

Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms. The largest and most complex marine forms are called seaweeds....
, fungi, bacteria

Bacteria

The Bacteria are a large group of unicellular microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals....
(microborers) and sponge

Sea sponge

The sponges or poriferans are animals of the phylum Porifera . Their bodies consist of an outer thin layer of cells, the pinacoderm and an inner mass of cells and skeletal elements, the choanoderm....
s (Clionaidae), bivalves (including Lithophaga
Lithophaga

Lithophaga, the date mussels, are a genus of medium-sized Marine bivalve molluscs in the family Mytilidae.The shells of species in this genus are long and narrow with parallel sides....
), sipunculans, polychaetes and phoronid

Phoronid

Phoronids , commonly known as horseshoe worms, are a relatively small animal phylum: twenty species are known, in two genera, Phoronis and Phoronopsis....
s, generating extremely fine sediment of 10 to 100 micrometres. External bioeroders include sea urchin

Sea urchin

Sea urchins are small, spiny, globular creatures that compose most of class Echinoidea. They are found in oceans all over the world. Their shell, or "test", is round and spiny, typically from 3 to 10 cm across....
s (such as Diadema) and chiton

Chiton

Chitons are small to large, primitive marine mollusks in the class Polyplacophora.There are 900 to 1,000 Extant taxon species of chitons in the class, which was formerly known as Amphineura....
s. These forces in concern result in a great deal of erosion. Sea urchin

Sea urchin

Calcium carbonate

Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula CalciumCarbonOxygen3. It is a common substance found as Rock in all parts of the world, and is the main component of seashells, snails, and eggshells....
has been reported in some reefs at annual rates exceeding 20 kg/m².

Fish also erode coral while eating algae

Algae

Parrotfish

Parrotfish are mostly tropical, perciform marine fish of the family Scaridae. Abundant on shallow reefs of the Red Sea, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans, the parrotfish family contains ten genera and about 90 species....
cause a great deal of bioerosion with their well developed jaw muscles, tooth armature, and a pharyngeal mill, which grinds up ingested material into sand-sized particles. Bioerosion of coral reef

Coral reef

Coral reefs are aragonite structures produced by living organisms. In most reefs the predominant organisms are colonial cnidarian that secrete an exoskeleton of calcium carbonate....
aragonite

Aragonite

Aragonite is a carbonate mineral, one of the two common, naturally occurring polymorphism of calcium carbonate, calciumcarbonoxygen3....
by parrotfish can range from 1017.7±186.3 kg/yr (0.41±0.07 m³/yr) for Chlorurus gibbus and 23.6±3.4 kg/yr (9.7 10-³±1.3 10-³ m²/yr) for Chlorurus sordidus (Bellwood, 1995).

Bioerosion is also well known in the fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or trace fossil of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous Rock formations and sedimentary rock layers is known as the fossil record....
record on shells and hardgrounds (Bromley, 1970), with traces of this activity stretching back well into the Precambrian

Precambrian

The Precambrian is an informal name for the supereon comprising the eon of the geologic timescale that came before the current Phanerozoic eon....
(Taylor & Wilson, 2003). Macrobioerosion, which produces borings visible to the naked eye, shows two distinct evolutionary radiation

Evolutionary radiation

An evolutionary radiation is an increase in taxonomy diversity or Morphology disparity, due to adaptation change or the opening of ecospace. Radiations may affect one clade or many, and be rapid or gradual; where they are rapid, and driven by a single lineage's adaptation to their environment, they are termed adaptive radiations....
s. One was in the Middle Ordovician

Ordovician

The Ordovician is a geologic period, the second of six of the Paleozoic era , and covers the time between 488.3?1.7 to 443.7?1.5 million years ago ....
(the Ordovician Bioerosion Revolution; see Wilson & Palmer, 2006) and the other in the Jurassic

Jurassic

The Jurassic is a geologic period that extends from about annum to Ma, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous....
(see Taylor & Wilson, 2003; Bromley, 2004; Wilson, 2007). Microbioerosion also has a long fossil record and its own radiations (see Glaub & Vogel, 2004; Glaub et al., 2007).

Bioerosion

See also

External links