The niches and crevices in this coral are home to a range of invertebrates and other organisms including brittle stars, sea urchins, polychaete worms, chitons and algae.
Polychaete | polychaete |
The ornate worm is often found in marine environments also inhabited by Notomastus lobatus (Polychaeta) and Saccoglossus kowalewskyi (Hemichordata), which produce and contaminate sediments with bromophenols and bromopyrroles.
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The ornate worm, Amphitrite ornata, is often found in marine environments also inhabited by other Polychaete worms which produce and contaminate sediments with bromophenols and bromopyrroles.
Methane clathrate deposits in the ocean floor have been found to be inhabited by polychaete worms of the species Hesiocaeca methanicola.
Many were long misidentified as the polychaete annelid Spirorbis until studies of shell microstructure and formation showed significant differences (Taylor and Vinn, 2006).
Studies in Liverpool Bay show that where the sea bed has been disturbed by dredging and deposition of further sediment has occurred, P. pellucidus and the polychaete worm Lagis koreni often come to dominate the community, which includes another bivalve, Abra alba.
Spirobranchus giganteus, the Christmas tree worm, a small tube-building polychaete worm species
Polychaete annelid worms such as Rotularia and gastropods such as the cerithiid sea snail Cerithium have also been discovered in beds within the formation.
Because of all this, the shells resemble the calcareous tubes of certain marine worms, for example worms in the polychaete family Serpulidae.