Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin the evolutionary ‘fairytale’ of coral – The Guardian

Reef Top, Great Barrier Reef, Australia Photograph: Daniela Dirscherl/Getty Images/WaterFrame RM

Science and storytelling dont seem like obvious bedfellows but recently theres been a serious vein of science communication research that suggests a strong narrative can help with dissemination, understanding by nonexperts and number one for most publishing scientists, citations.

Of course, sciencing the art of storytelling, with narrativity indices and reader appeal charts does sound typically soul-suckingly dry, but it is at the heart of the science communication movement and many of the Lost Worlds Revisited blogs are retellings of decades of palaeontological research into narratives with a beginning, middle and end.

Tentative justification preamble out of the way, heres a classic fairytale retold as the story of hexacorallian evolution*. Oh it was also National Tell A Fairy Tale Day last month, which I am sure we all celebrated. Now, I hope you are sitting comfortably.

Once upon a time, possibly in the Precambrian there was an ancestral hexacorallian mother who had three little orders** of corals and not enough food to feed them. So when they evolved into distinct orders, she sent them out into the world to seek their fortunes.

The first little order of corals, order Tabulata, appearing in the early Ordovician was very lazy. He lacked distinctive characteristics which created taxonomic problems for palaeontologists and didnt want to work at all and he built his corallites from feeble septa without axial structure. The second little order, order Rugosa, who appeared later in the Ordovician worked a little bit harder but he was somewhat lazy too and he built his corallites out of serial septa with some axial structure. Then, they sang and danced and diversified together the rest of the day.

The third little order, the Scleractinia, which appeared sometime during the Palaeozoic worked hard all day and built his skeleton with lightweight but rigidly supporting cyclic septa. It was a sturdy bauplan complete with a wide diversity of forms and aragonitic skeletons.

In the Late Devonian, dynamic global climate systems happened to pass by the lane where the three little coral orders lived; and he saw the weakly developed septa of tabulate corals, and he smelled the coral inside. He thought the corals would make a mighty fine meal and his mouth began to water.

So he knocked on the door and said:

Little coral! Little coral!

Let me in! Let me in!

But the little coral saw the dynamic global climate systems through the keyhole, so he answered back:

No! No! No!

Not by the mural pores on my modular corallites!

Then the dynamic global climate systems showed his teeth and said:

Then Ill huff

and Ill puff

and through a complex series of climate changes including glaciation caused by the greening of the land, a possible bollide collision and magmatism activity, Ill blow your house down.

So he huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down! Dynamic global climate systems opened his jaws very wide and bit down as hard as he could, but tabulate corals escaped and ran away to hide with the rugose corals.

Dynamic global climate systems continued down the lane and at the end of the Permian he passed by the rugose coralllites with serial septa and with the tabulate feeble septa of the tabulate corals; and he smelled the corals inside, and his mouth began to water as he thought about the fine dinner they would make.

So he knocked on the door and said:

Little corals! Little corals!

Let me in! Let me in!

But the little pigs saw the dynamic global climate systems through the keyhole, so they answered back:

No! No! No!

Not by the dividing walls of my massive coralla!

Answered the rugose corals.

So the dynamic global climate systems showed his teeth and said:

Then Ill huff

and Ill puff

and Ill cause the most severe mass extinction event that has ever been known, causing the extinction of several major groups of terrestrial and marine organisms and at the same time Ill blow your house down.

So he huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down! Dynamic global climate systems destroyed over 90% of all marine organisms including trilobites, eurypterids, acanthodian fish and blastoid echinoderms. Rugose and tabulate corals also went extinct.

Dynamic global climate systems then merrily skipped down the lane arriving at the robust scleractinian corals at the end of the Cretaceous. The scleractinian corals were very frightened, they knew the dynamic global climate systems wanted to eat them. And that was very, very true. Dynamic global climate systems hadnt eaten all day and he had worked up a large appetite causing mass extinctions and the like and now he could smell the last of the corals inside and he knew that the coral would make a lovely meal.

So the wolf knocked on the door and said:

Little coral! Little coral!

Let me in! Let me in!

But the scleractinian saw the dynamic global climate systems through the keyhole, so they answered back:

No! No! No!

Not by the symbiotic dinoflagellates in our cells!

So the dynamic global climate systems showed his teeth and said:

Then Ill huff

and Ill puff

and Ill bring down an asteroid or two as well as mess around with the Deccan traps and cause eustatic changes which will also, I hope, blow your house down.

So he huffed and he puffed. He puffed and he huffed. And he huffed, huffed, and he puffed, puffed; he destroyed the non-avian dinosaurs, the pterosaurs, the ammonoids and belemnoids, the polyglyphanodontians, the mosasaurs and plesiosaurs and although he destroyed roughly 60% of the scleractinian corals he just could not blow the house down. At last, he was so out of breath that he couldnt huff and he couldnt puff or breathe anymore so he had a bit of a lay down.

The damaged scleractinian corals emerged, repaired their house and went on to diverge into the stony corals we know and love today and they lived happily ever after. Well until anthropogenic impacts started to cause widespread bleaching events but thats a story for another time.

THE END

*Yes, yes I know that perhaps storytelling in science wasnt supposed to be taken quite so literally but its corals were talking about here they need all the narrative index help they can get.

** She had other children who also got into escapades but those are stories for another time.

References

Dahlstrom, M. D. 2014. Using narratives and stroytelling to communicate science with nonexpert audiences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. v.111 Supplement 4. Weblink here.

Scrutton, C. T. 1997. The Palaeozoic corals, I: origins and relationships. Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society, v. 51:177-208. Weblink here.

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Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin the evolutionary 'fairytale' of coral - The Guardian