Hexacorallia belong to the class Anthozoa, comprising organisms that form polyps with 6-fold symmetry, which includes all of the stony and reef-building corals.
The individual animals are known as polyps and have a cylindrical body crowned by an oral disc in which a mouth is fringed with tentacles Mussidae are a family of stony coral restricted to the Atlantic Ocean, they have a massive spheroid form with convolutions that resemble a brain.
This species reaches the Brazilian states of Maranhão, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe, Bahia, Espírito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo, showing how expansive its reach is.
It can also be found on farther-off oceanic coral reefs, like those of Fernando de Noronha Island and the Rocas Atoll.
These species are commonly blue-grey, green, and yellow in color and live in shallow or subtidal reef environments around Brazil.
Due to the unique structural composition of M. braziliensis, organisms such as T. hirsutus crabs depend on the coral for habitat compared to the other Mussismilia species.
It is observed to have a greater crustacean fauna richness compared to the other species of Mussismilia due to its large meandroid pattern, in which polyps are larger and grow apart.
They live in shallow water and can tolerate unstable environments, making them more adaptable to the changing climate.
Source:[2] colony form: phaceloid or subplocoid calice: Species of Mussismilia differ in colony form and calice size Septa: thin and often porous near the columella columella: continuous with trabecular linkage between centres.
According to a live coral predation study conducted by Francini-Filho et al. (2008), Brazilian endemic parrotfish species, Scarus trispinosus and Sparisoma amplum, preyed mainly on M. braziliensis and F.
[5] The most abundant bacterium found in healthy Mussismilia corals include Alphaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Firmicute.
Diseased corals were found to have a distinct microbiota, dominated by Bacteroidetes, Gammaproteobacteria, and unclassified Proteobacteria.
The most abundant groups in the bare skeleton (SK) were Deltaproteobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria,, and Gammaproteobacteria, with a greater amount of Vibrios and Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria compared to healthy corals.
Three species of Mussismilia (M. braziliensis, M. hartti, and M. hispida) exhibit annual reproduction cycles with an average length of 11 months.
Research suggests that spawner corals, specifically M hispida, can transmit their bacterial core to their offspring via their gametes, influencing the evolution of the future generations.
[10,15] Mature corals release their gametes into the water column allowing for external fertilization to occur (meiosis).
Researchers used a novel analysis imaging method to shoot photos of rocky corals to track their movements.
While Mussismilia are stationary for the entirety of their lives, they do have subtle movements required to extend their polyps and capture zooplankton prey.
[2] It is hard to determine the exact time that recent global change started to negatively impact Mussismilia.