| Craig,
basically the shape of a coral, (acros for example...branching and random shapes) allows it to get light from many different angles...up to 3 times more than it would if it were flat.
To feed on Zooplankton moer efficiently, corals would be more flat and a continuous feeding plane. But this would eat all of the zoo plankton , not leaving ebnough for all polyps....branches allow the coral to eat from different parts of the water column.
Corals that are better suited to eating zooplankton have large polyps designed for this.
thats basically it...
Nick |