Hey girls and boys! I'm Abby Brown.
We all know that Iowa has beautiful prairies, farms,
cities, lakes, rivers and wooded areas. But what we don't have is
ocean, not here or anywhere nearby.
So how can Iowa be involved in saving the ocean's coral reefs?
Today in a very special area here at the Blank Park Zoo,
we're going to see how several different species of coral
are being fed. That's right, corals are animals!
Go Wild with Iowa PBS and the Blank Park Zoo as we learn
about a fascinating creature, ocean coral.
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So today's science
adventure may have you thinking we need some
scuba diving gear.
But our friends here at the Blank Park Zoo assure
me that we do not.
Let's dive in and get a peek at ocean life right
here in Iowa.
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Hi! My name is Anne and I'm from the Blank Park Zoo.
Did you know that coral reefs are found in oceans
all across the world?
Thousands of animals make the reef their home and
healthier reefs are really important for the health
of animals all across the ocean and also people that
live all over the world.
♪♪
Anne: Right off the coast of Florida is
one of the largest reef tracks in North America
called the Florida Reef Track and right now the
Florida Reef Track is endangered and those
animals need help and Blank Park Zoo is really
proud to be a part of that solution.
And with me today is my friend, Dana.
Dana takes care of all the fish at the Blank Park Zoo
and she's here to tell us a little bit about the
project.
Dana: Hi, guys!
So we are 1 of 15 AZA facilities that are taking
care of corals from the Florida Reef Track, as
Anne said.
These corals could potentially be affected by
a stony coral tissue loss disease and it is very
detrimental or really bad for these corals.
So what we do is we're holding these corals for
several years until researchers can figure out
what the issue is and hopefully return them back
to the wild.
Anne: So, Dana, Des Moines is really far from the
ocean.
So how are we taking care of these animals being so
far away?
Dana: Yeah, so we took a couple of months to set up
four aquariums or trays for the corals to live in
for this three year period.
And we make sure that their water quality is
clean and healthy for them, so we have lots of
filtration to help keep that clean, we do a lot of
maintenance and the biggest thing is feeding
them and making sure that they’re well fed.
Anne: Do you think you can show us?
Dana: Yeah, I can take you right back.
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Anne: Wow this is a new
place I've never seen before.
Dana: Yeah, this is our holding area for the
coral.
It is completely separate from all the other
exhibits that we have at the zoo.
One of the main reasons or one really important thing
with these corals is we have to keep them separate
so they don't mix any water with any other
aquariums.
Anne: So, are all of these different species that you
have here?
Dana: We have about 10 different species here.
The program is working with about 26 different
species of coral so we've got just under half of
those.
But it's really interesting, they all,
even the same species can look very different.
You can have one species that is a bright purple
and the same exact species sometimes looks orange.
So it's really, really neat how different these
corals really are.
Anne: So I noticed that there looks like boards,
and they have tags by them.
So can you tell us a little bit about that?
Dana: Yeah, so each coral has an identification so
we can tell them all apart.
Florida Fish and Wildlife also has that linked to
their genetics so they know exactly the species
of coral.
The numbers, the first name is actually the
location that the coral was collected in Florida.
The middle part is their species, genus and species
name.
And then the last number is that number of coral
that was collected, so they have anywhere from 1
to 100 corals of that species.
Anne: So a lot of people don't realize that corals
are actually animals.
Dana: Yeah, so it's really, really
interesting.
So basically how corals work, there's a couple of
different things that come into play.
Part of their need for energy is lighting, so you
can see that we have lights here.
They need the sunlight to help them grow.
They also have a calcium carbonate skeleton, just
like we have bones, it's very similar for them so
they pull the calcium out of the water so that they
can grow these big calcium structures.
And they actually also have mouths.
Each coral has several different polyps.
You can see this one right here has, it's got about
15 polyps, it's these round, the circular parts.
And in the very middle of that what we call a mouth.
What the coral will do is any plankton or any food
item that floats by them, they actually use
nematocysts, which is kind of a sticky way of
grabbing that food and taking it in and digesting
it.
So they actually really are animals and they're
not plants, as some people believe.
Anne: So what would a coral eat?
Dana: We feed them crushed plankton.
They'll eat really anything that kind of
floats by them but usually it's very small food
items.
So plankton is the most common food item that they
would take in.
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Dana: So as I mentioned here we
feed them fresh plankton.
We mix it with a couple of amino acids, a really
important building block for the corals to continue
to grow.
And it's really simple, we just mix a little tank
water in there as well.
We have our turkey baster and we'll suck up a little
bit of food just like that.
And I'll actually directly deposit the food right
onto the coral mouth.
♪♪
Anne: Do you have to feed each individual
polyp?
Dana: So we kind of space them out.
These ones, since it's really easy to see all of
the mouths, we try to hit all the mouths that we
can.
Some of them the mouths are a little harder to
distinguish so we just kind of broadcast over the
whole coral.
But this one is really fun to watch eat, so I'm going
to give them lots of food.
♪♪
Anne: So it looks like this one the
polyps are actually closing.
Is that them actually eating?
Dana: Yeah, you can see how the mouth is deepening
and they're actually absorbing all that food
and they'll take it in and use it for energy.
♪♪
Dana: And so we'll do that with each coral,
just kind of spread the food right over those
mouths, and let the corals do the rest.
♪♪
Wow, that was a first for me. I've never seen coral eat.
It's amazing!
Thank you everyone for Going Wild with Iowa PBS
and the Blank Park Zoo.
I'm Abby Brown.
And always remember to ask questions and wonder.
That's what science is all about.
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