Sea Fan coral

Alcyonacea, also known as sea fan coral, is a soft, woody coral found all over the world and particularly here in the Caribbean. It comes in a rainbow of colors and grows wide like a fan, giving the coral it’s name.

Though it looks like a plant, sea fan is actually a living animal with a central skeleton called a colony. Each colony has numerous polyps and each one of those has eight tentacles which spread out like a fan to catch plankton.

This amazing coral is so beneficial to marine ecology! They are home to a number of different sea creatures like fish, sponges, algae and more. Dolphins use sea fan as medicine, too.

The fans have an antibacterial quality in the chemicals they produce, so dolphins take advantage of that by rubbing themselves against fans.

A few years ago scientists started noticing sea fan dying off in alarming rates while they were studying these antibacterial chemicals in hopes of putting them to use for humans. What they found was that the common mold Aspergillus was causing a fungal infection in marine terrain.

Aspergillus has been known affect humans and terrestrial terrain, but had not before been known to impact sea life. There are a few theories as to why this began happening.

Scientists believe it’s caused by either water runoff and pollution, Saharan dust which carries Aspergillus and affects respiratory health, or it’s been present in the marine ecosystem all along but is only starting to kill off coral because of global warming.

All of these theories point back to human activity to be the cause of the increased mortality rate in this beautiful animal.

Pipelines like Line 3, which is being proposed to be illegally built on Anishinaabe lands right now, contribute to water runoff. Enbridge is the Canadian company responsible for the pipeline and the largest inland oil spill in the United States in the Kalamazoo River.

Allowing companies like Enbridge to continue to expand pipelines and break treaties with indigenous peoples will have an impact on the entire world, including the incredible marine life here in Puerto Rico.

Cherish every drop of water you use and make sure to stand with the water protectors. They are fighting for our lives.