Glossary

Bacteria: single-celled, prokaryotic organisms that reproduce by cell division and usually have rigid cell walls

Carbon Dioxide: a type of gas that helps plant to photosynthesis

Corals: hard, variously colored, calcareous skeleton secreted by certain marine polyps

Coral Bleaching: the release of the symbiotic colored algae normally living within coral animals, which occurs when coral animals are stressed

Ecosystem: systems which include both living and non-living substances interacting to produce an exchange of materials between the living and the non living

Euthrophication: the slow aging process during which a lake, estuary, or bay evolves into a bog or marsh and eventually disappears

Fungus: a member of a class of relatively primitive vegetable organisms

Global Warming: an overall increase in world temperatures which may be caused by additional heat being trapped by greenhouse gases

Oxygen: a type of gas needed for life processes to take place

Polyp: a growth or tumor, usually benign, on an internal surface such as the uterine wall

Zooplankton: the aggregate of animal or animal-like organisms in plankton, as protozoans

Zoosanthellae: unicellular yellow-brown (dinoflagellate) algae which live symbiotically in the gastrodermis of reef-building coral