Definition: A sheet of saline water separated from the open sea by sand or shingle banks. The sheet of water between an offshore reef, especially of coral and mainland. The sheet of water within a ring or horseshoe shaped atoll.
Definition: An oceanic island, often having a characteristic ring-like shape surrounding a lagoon. Atolls are formed when coral reef grows around a volcanic island that later subsides into the ocean.
Definition: A landform consisting of loose rock particles such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, cobble, or even shell fragments along the shoreline of a body of water.
Definition: The marine benthic biome (benthic meaning 'bottom') encompasses the seafloor and includes such areas as shores, littoral or intertidal areas, marine coral reefs, and the deep seabed.
Definition: A structural quality inhering in a bearer by virtue of the bearer's being thicker or more closely packed together; pressed tightly together.
Definition: A built-structure inhabited by an organism and essential to its survival, but not part of its body, composed of hardened (either rigid or flexible) secretions, with or without the addition of embedded particles, with those particles either selectively collected from the environment or passively becoming glued during formation (pers. comm. Read, G.).
Definition: Skeletal support provided by hydrostatic pressure from a fluid filled cavity (e.g. the coelum) surrounded by muscles. Hydrostatic pressure provides skeletal support in sea anemones, jellyfish, nematodes, annelids, echinoderms, and other groups.
Definition: a sub-group of suspension feeding animals that feed by straining suspended matter and food particles from water, typically by passing the water over a specialized filtering structure
