No, by "coral reef" I mean the whole ecosystem, not just the polyps and their skeletons.

There are many species of coral in one reef, and the symbiotic algae that photosynthesize nutrients in their tissues. Then there are all the fish, worms, molluscs, microbes, crustaceans and thousands of other creatures and plants that are living in the reef and contribute to its total metabolism, both as predator, prey or commensal and symbiotic relationships. It is a community of many organisms, each being a cell in the larger body, and each group of similar "cells" acting as a different tissue in a huge collective. At higher levels, the individual tissues work together as organs and organ systems. These all interact together in a variety of ways...the clown fish keeps the anemone clean and free of parasites and it receives protection and shelter from its host. Neither could flourish without the other.

The reef consists of many species which depend on each other and do not exist in isolation, just as our blood, muscle, nerve, connective, bone and nerve cells and tissues interact to form an independent life form with a sense of its own existence and consciousness, but which, until recently, was completely unaware of the individual parts that made up the whole. We are all a multitude.

The reef, like any ecosystem, is an interactive system bound together through an infinite collection of relationships. You can say the same for any ecosystem, but the coral reef and the tropical rain forest are the most complex ones on earth. They may even be complex enough to evolve consciousness.

But if they have indeed evolved a consciousness, it is one that operates at time scales far slower than ours, and the devastation we inflict on those systems through our activities (like fishing with dynamite or logging, mining and slash-and-burn agriculture) is probably "perceived" the way we perceive the chemical imbalances we experience as infections or cancers.

We are a disease on this planet and if we don't stop soon, we will either kill it or we will change it to some form that will no longer support us.