The BIOLOGY OF CARIBBEAN CORAL REEFS is presented as a VIRTUAL DIVE, with text, photographs, and videos. All topics in the VIRTUAL DIVE are "stand-alone", but there is a kind of order as presented in the menu above or, better, in the TOPICS section accessible from this same menu.

The ORDER is as follows. First comes a description of types of Caribbean reefs, including how they form and threats to their survival. Next comes an overview of their biodiversity including a small section on mangroves. There is also an account of potentially dangerous reef organisms. Later sections tell how organisms recruit to the reef, the hazards they face as larvae and juveniles, the role of asexual reproduction in recruitment, how as adults they compete for space and other vital resources, and the ways in which they live together. In other sections you will learn about nutrition of coral-reef organisms, including photosynthesis, herbivory, carnivory, detritivory, and bacterivory.  The VIRTUAL DIVE concludes with a description of the many and varied defenses of reef organisms, and the role that colours play in behaviour and survival.

There are 312 videos and 2300 illustrations, including photographs, drawings, graphs, and cartoons.

NOTE I produced an introductory version of BCCR several years ago as a DVD, but its linear format proved unwieldy and slow, and like a book, it was set in stone. The present web-based version allows changes to be made quickly and easily, so don't hesitate to give me suggestions/corrections carefoot@zoology.ubc.ca

NOTE: Does one search for common name or scientific name?: the more precise method of searching is to use the complete binomial scientific name (e.g., Condylactis gigantea for the giant anemone). However, you can use just the genus name (e.g., Condylactis), in which case you will bring up references to other animals in the same genus, or you can use just the species name (e.g., gigantea), in which case you will get all giant-anemone references, but also all other organisms with the same species name (probably not many). If you use common names in your search you may have difficulty, as there can be many different common names for the same organism. For example, other names for the giant anemone Condylactis gigantea include pink-striped anemone, condy anemone, Haitian anemone, giant Caribbean sea anemone, purple-tipped anemone, Caribbean anemone, giant sea anemone, and purple Haitian anemone. If you were to search for the giant anemone using any of these other names, you would be out of luck. The search word "anemone" alone, however, would bring up all anemones including C. gigantea, which you could then sort through. The search word "giant" alone would be less useful, as you would get a variety of Caribbean organisms including C. gigantea. This potential problem has been made a little bit easier by using, as much as possible, common names as suggested by Paul Humann in his series of Reef Identification publications.

Finally, secondary or tertiary sortings of search results can be made by including other search items such as author or topic. Thus, following the example above, all Condylactis entries could be further sorted to ones relating to topics of diet, reproduction, defense, or what-have-you. How the index can be used should be obvious once you get started.

Write to me at carefoot@zoology.ubc.ca if you have questions or if you have suggestions on any aspect of the site.