Biologically formed hard tissues, referred to as biominerals, have intrigued the materials
engineering community for years because of the high degree of crystallographic control that …

In spite of more than one century and half of studies, mechanisms of coral biomineralization,
leading to coral growth and reef formation, still remain poorly known, although major global …

Ocean acidification (OA) is considered an important threat to coral reef ecosystems, because
it reduces the availability of carbonate ions that reef-building corals need to produce their …

Little is known about how stony corals build their calcareous skeletons. There are two
prevailing hypotheses: that it is a physicochemically dominated process and that it is a …

The coral surface mucus layer provides a vital interface between the coral epithelium and
the seawater environment and mucus acts in defence against a wide range of environmental …

In recent years, the prevalence of hydrogel‐like organic matrices in biomineralization has
gained attention as a route to synthesizing a diverse range of crystalline structures. Here …

Hard, or stony, corals make rocks that can, on geological time scales, lead to the formation of
massive reefs in shallow tropical and subtropical seas. In both historical and contemporary …

The evolutionary success of reef-building corals in nutrient-poor tropical waters is attributed
to endosymbiotic dinoflagellates. The algae release photosynthetic products to the coral …

The contemporary “two− step model” of growth of the scleractinian skeleton is based mostly
on transversely sectioned samples. According to this model, many skeletal elements eg …

In the recent years several papers and some reviews have dealt with characterization,
localization and influence on the precipitation of calcium carbonate, of the organic matrix …