Frequently
Asked Questions
"There
are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has
stopped asking questions"
Charles Proteus Stienmetz
What
is a reef system?
A
reef system is an association between coral reefs and their adjacent
coastal and oceanic environments and commonly encompasses a mangrove
wetland, seagrass lagoon, coral reef and insular fore-reef shelf.
These components are interconnected in space and time so that
each contributes to the state of the system as a whole.
The goal of studying reef systems is to obtain a predictive understanding
by describing and modeling how its components and their interactions
function, how they develop, and how they may be expected to develop
on all time scales.