the poet x essay prompts

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

Banned book writing prompts.

Matthew Burgess

In Banned Book Writing Prompts, a new series in  Teachers & Writers Magazine , we aim to push back against the growing movement to censor what students can read and to show what happens when we enthusiastically embrace banned works rather than fear them. You can read  an introduction to this series by Susan Karwoska here , and you can find more  Banned Book Writing Prompts here . Also in the magazine: “ The Braver We Become: A Conversation with Elizabeth Acevedo .”

I had been teaching “Literature for Young People” at Brooklyn College for several years, and I needed to shake up the syllabus. I asked one of my graduate students to recommend a contemporary YA novel, and he immediately suggested The Poet X . “I think you’ll really love it,” he said, and with this encouragement, I dove in.

It didn’t take long for me to become immersed in Elizabeth Acevedo’s gorgeous, pitch-perfect novel-in-verse. Her protagonist, Xiomara Batista, is a high school sophomore in Harlem navigating conflicting feelings about religion, love, family, and self-expression. The typical plot points of a coming-of-age story appear, and in Acevedo’s masterful hands, every twist and turn feels genuine. I devoured it in two days and immediately swapped it into my syllabus for the following semester at Brooklyn College. 

Could you imagine if, at 13, you read a book about a young Hispanic girl navigating through almost exactly the same issues as you did? All that anger, frustration, confusion, and insecurity would have been maybe a bit easier to work through.

I was especially moved by the vivid descriptions of the poetry classroom as a sanctuary and creative laboratory. Acevedo describes this space—a space I cherish—with great authenticity. Over the years I’ve seen what poetry can do, the way it can alchemize young people and help bring out their voices. I was excited to see this represented in The Poet X .

Acevedo’s dedication, which precedes the opening poem, is “To Katherine Bolaños and my former students at Buck Lodge Middle School 2010–2012, and all the little sisters yearning to see themselves: this is for you.” With this, Acevedo makes one of her intentions explicit: to offer a “mirror” to young women of color who have been underrepresented in literature for young people for so long. I’ve been teaching The Poet X consistently for several years now, and my students’ responses provide the most moving and eloquent testimony about the importance of this reflection. I’ve asked and received permission from two students to share excerpts from their writing.

In her reading response titled “Sisters with Voices,” Jessica Sheppard writes:

Ahhh, another home run for the brown girls who preferred sneakers over sandals and open mouths with closed fists. Xiomara feels like a home girl I knew growing up, one who my mom wouldn’t have wanted me hanging out with because, “we cause trouble when we’re together.” But I sneak around with her anyway, because I need her. I need to know that there are other girls out there who take a lot of hits and talk a lot of shit. I need to feel her fear, so that I may give myself permission to acknowledge my own. I need to see her tears, because I need proof that it’s okay for strong girls to cry. More importantly, I need to know that if you do the tears won’t melt the tough shell that took so long to build in the first place. Xiomara is my friend, my sister. We talk on the phone and muse about all of things we see and want and hope to have for ourselves. We push past one another’s protective exteriors to open ourselves up to what we know will be a tender, sometimes painful exchange of stories, experiences, laughs, and questions about who we are, where we have been, and the fact that neither of us is really sure where we’ll go. [. . .] Xiomara’s is a story that speaks to so many people’s experiences, but I’d like to think that this coming-of-age tale is especially triumphant to women of color who are bold and bright enough to speak, even before they’re spoken to. 

Another student, Briana Pascascio, a graduate student working on her degree in education, created a final project about The Poet X in the form of an extended multimedia letter to her younger self. In an introductory passage, she writes:

But could you imagine if, at 13, you read a book about a young Hispanic girl navigating through almost exactly the same issues as you did? All that anger, frustration, confusion, and insecurity would have been maybe a bit easier to work through. Maybe, you would have gained your confidence years earlier or a better way to express yourself beyond just listening to music and coded journaling. Well, I’d like to share something with you. You discover (and are also assigned) a verse named The Poet X written by Elizabeth Acevedo and, in two days, you complete the book and all your 28-year-old brain could think was, “Wow! This was me.” And your mind reeled with how different you might have felt if this novel was written 10 years earlier and mom borrowed the book from the library for you to read. Through reading this book, you discover the 13-year-old you who, in a way, still needed this book. Then you realize that you will make sure you have all kinds of literature in your future English classroom that causes all the different walks of life in your class to feel seen. But, to circle back to you, who realized how much you still needed this novel, I will share with you the moments in the novel you needed the most.

These beautiful testimonies demonstrate the power of Acevedo’s story to inspire, to encourage, to comfort, and to summon inner reserves of strength and creativity. You also can see how Acevedo’s writing provides a platform for student writing. Like all great art, it quickens our own creative impulse to act and create in response.

The idea of banning a book as beautiful as this one, as necessary as this one, feels outrageous to me. As in: rage-inducing, appalling. Since I first included The Poet X on my syllabus, students have received this book as a balm, a blessing, and a lifeline. Again and again they say, this is a book that would have made the younger me feel less alone, more empowered. May those of us in the position of sharing books like these offer them to the readers who need them most.

Writing Prompt 1

The gaps between drafts: encouraging creativity & authenticity.

Given that Elizabeth Acevedo was once a middle-school teacher, and to this day leads writing workshops with young people, I think the writing prompts included in The Poet X are all worth sharing. In five instances throughout the book, we encounter a writing prompt given by Xiamora’s English teacher, Ms. Galiano. First we read the “rough draft” of Xiamora’s response to the assignment, and then we see her final draft, what she “actually turns in.” Acevedo offers this glimpse into the ways in which students alter, erase, or flatten their voices into a form that feels more acceptable, more “teacher friendly.” By offering the unfiltered “rough draft” beside the more formal and decidedly less lively “final draft,” we see this code-shifting process play out.

Take a look at one or more of Xiomara’s rough drafts and compare them with the accompanying final draft: Have you noticed a similar dynamic playing out in your own writing? How might your writing look, and feel, and sound, if you were given the permission to be more yourself or more creatively free? What is the line between code-shifting and self-censorship?

Following Xiomara’s example, respond to one of the writing prompts below, from The Poet X, with a “rough” version free of any constraints whatsoever, and a “final” version that conforms to your perceived preferences of a teacher or professor. Then compare the differences between the two as a means of exploring how code-shifting can limit creativity.

Assignment 1: Write about the most impactful day of your life. Assignment 2: Last Paragraphs of My Biography Assignment 3: Describe someone you consider misunderstood by society. Assignment 4: When was the last time you felt free? Assignment 5: Explain Your Favorite Quote

Writing Prompt 2

Making “place” pop on the page.

Read the very first poem in the book, “Stoop Sitting,” and notice how Acevedo evokes the setting through vivid description, or what I call with my younger students, “delicious details.” What lines create images in your mind?

Now think of a place you’ve lived or a place you know well, whether it’s your own block or stoop, or some outdoor spot of your choice. A meditation can be helpful here: try closing your eyes and envisioning what you see, hear, smell, and feel, followed by a free-write to gather these impressions, in note form, on the page. Set a timer for 7–15 minutes and write a draft of a poem using “Stoop-Sitting” as a model. If you prefer more structure, you can begin each stanza with some or all of Acevedo’s verbs:

I scope out . . . Peep . . . Listen to . . . Laugh at . . . Shake my head as . . .

Writing Prompt 3

“let’s talk about line breaks”.

After teaching The Poet X at Brooklyn College for the first time, I reached out to Elizabeth Acevedo for an interview with Teachers & Writers Magazine . Here is a short excerpt from one exchange:

Matthew: When reading  The Poet X , I was struck by your line breaks and the way you negotiate the page. Do you have any strategies for teaching that level of craft with students?  Elizabeth : This is my favorite question. I’m like, “Let’s talk about line breaks!”

What follows this exchange is a helpful consideration about the various elements that influence a poet’s placement of line and stanza on the page, including pacing, breath, and emphasis. When I was first writing free verse poems, I wondered about these elements of craft and hungered for opportunities to explore them, and to this day, I enjoy examining the effects of spacing and enjambment with my students.

To start, take some time to explore a few of the poems in The Poet X where the line breaks create noticeable effects. For example, you might begin with a quieter example in “Warmth,” a poem about Xiomara holding hands with her crush, Aman. Read the poem aloud to demonstrate the subtle effects of the spacing in these lines:

We are silent the whole walk. Without words we are in agreement that we’ll walk as far as we can this way: my hand     held     in his     held in his coat pocket. Each of us keeping the other warm against the quiet chill.

When I recently discussed this poem with my class at Brooklyn College, one student noted the way the alliterative “w” brings emphasis to the intimacy of these two young individuals who are beginning to become a “we.” Then I asked: what do we make of the additional spaces in the line beginning “my hand”? Someone pointed out that it slows the pace and makes the reader focus in on the held hands. Another observed that these spaces evoke the heartbeat, and in this way, we feel the “racing heart” of the poem’s speaker in this moment of intimacy and touch.

A more dramatic example arrives later in the two consecutive poems “Ants” and “I Am No Ant,” which depict of an intense moment of confrontation between Xiomara and her mother. In the first, the poem steps down the page with one word per line:

In this example, the shape of the lines mimics the downward motion as Xiomara’s mother forces her daughter to kneel and pray for forgiveness. In response, Xiomara tries “to make an ant of [her]self.” When I asked my students to reflect on the ways in which the form of this poem is connected to the content , they identified the connection between the descending lines and the pulling, as well as the way the isolation of each word on its own line gives the visual impression of ants.

For this writing prompt, I invite you to make your own exploration of the relationship between form and content. Here are two possibilities:

1. Write a poem about an early encounter with a crush or a first love, using present tense and vivid imagery. Following Acevedo’s example, look for places in the poem where the line breaks and/or spacing can heighten reader’s identification with the poem’s speaker.

2. Write a poem about a conflict with a parent, sibling, or friend. Experiment with the placement of the words on the page so that the shape of the poem captures and transmits some of the intensity of the conflict.

Further Reading: “ The Braver We Become: A Conversation with Elizabeth Acevedo ” by Matthew Burgess.

Matthew Burgess is an Associate Professor at Brooklyn College. He is the author of eight children's books, most recently The Red Tin Box (Chronicle) and Sylvester’s Letter (ELB). Matthew has edited an anthology of visual art and writing titled  Dream Closet: Meditations on Childhood Space (Secretary Press), as well as a collection of essays titled  Spellbound: The Art of Teaching Poetry (T&W). More books are forthcoming, including: As Edward Imagined: A Story of Edward Gorey (Knopf, 2024), Words With Wings & Magic Things (Tundra, 2025), and  Fireworks (Harper Collins, 2024). A poet-in-residence in New York City public schools since 2001, Matthew serves as a contributing editor of Teachers & Writers Magazine .

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Elizabeth Acevedo

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Elizabeth Acevedo's The Poet X . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

The Poet X: Introduction

The poet x: plot summary, the poet x: detailed summary & analysis, the poet x: themes, the poet x: quotes, the poet x: characters, the poet x: symbols, the poet x: theme wheel, brief biography of elizabeth acevedo.

Historical Context of The Poet X

Other books related to the poet x.

• Full Title: The Poet X
• When Written: 2012-2018
• Where Written: Washington, DC
• When Published: 2018
• Literary Period: Contemporary
• Genre: Young Adult Verse Novel; Bildungsroman
• Setting: Harlem
• Climax: Mami burns Xiomara’s journal
• Antagonist: Mami is arguably the primary antagonist. More broadly, Xiomara also fights against sexism and Catholicism.
• Point of View: First-person

Extra Credit for The Poet X

A Long Writing Process. Acevedo originally wrote some of the poems in The Poet X as a teenager in her journal.

Popular. In 2018, The Poet X was one of the most-ordered books at the New York Public Library and it also won several awards, including the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

What do you think? Leave a respectful comment.

Courtney Vinopal Courtney Vinopal

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/discussion-questions-for-the-poet-x

Discussion questions for ‘The Poet X’

Our November 2020 pick for Now Read This , the PBS NewsHour’s book club with The New York Times, is Elizabeth Acevedo’s “The Poet X.” Become a member of the Now Read This book club by joining our Facebook group , or by signing up to our newsletter . Learn more about the book club here .

Below are questions to help guide your discussions as you read the book over the next month. You can also submit your own questions for Acevedo on our Google form . Acevedo will answer reader questions about “The Poet X” on the PBS NewsHour at the end of the month.

WARNING: Spoiler alert on questions further down

• What did you think of Acevedo’s decision to write the novel in verse? What effect did this have on the telling of the story?
• “If Medusa was Dominican/ and had a daughter, I think I’d be her./ I look and feel like a myth./ A story distorted, waiting for others to stop/ and stare.” What does this passage say about Xiomara’s relationship with her changing body?
• At one point Xiomara’s mother calls her an offensive word to describe a promiscuous woman. How does Xiomara repurpose the word rather than taking offense to it?
• “As I got older/ I began to really see/ the way that church/ treats a girl like me differently,” Xiomara writes. When you were a teenager, what did you start to question about the things you had been taught?
• The Bible stories in Genesis, particularly that of Eve, are particularly questionable to Xiomara. Why do you think that is?
• At one point, Xiomara writes that her boyfriend Aman has “made a junkie” out of her: “He’s turned me into a fiend:/ waiting for his next word/ hanging on his last breath/ always waiting for the next, next time.” What did you think of her metaphor of addiction in this passage?
• “She knows me in ways I don’t have to explain,” Xiomara writes of her friend, Caridad. How does their friendship evolve throughout the novel?
• How do Xiomara and her twin support one another as they face pressure to fulfill certain expectations of gender and identity from their family?
• How did Acevedo’s setting and language paint a picture of Xiomara’s home and culture? What was most effective about her descriptions?
• Ms. Galiano encourages Xiomara to join her school’s slam poetry club. Have you had a teacher who saw promise in you and inspired you to explore it?
• How does Xiomara change after performing slam poetry? Why does it open her up?
• How does Father Sean help Xiomara reconcile with her mother? Did you sympathize with her Mami despite the pain she caused?
• Was there one school assignment or essay written by Xiomara that stood out to you? If so, why?
• Would you share this book with younger readers in your life? Why or why not?

Courtney Vinopal is a general assignment reporter at the PBS NewsHour.

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Guilt, Shame, and Religion

The feelings of guilt and shame mark many of Xiomara’s difficulties with her mother, starting from a very young age. At age 11, Xiomara learned to link her own body with intense feelings of shame because her mother clumsily managed the arrival of Xiomara’s first period. In her inexperience, Xiomara bought herself tampons without knowing how to use them. This decision horrified her mother, who hit Xiomara across the face. Mami felt at the time that tampons were only for women who were sexually active, and her actions only confused the innocent Xiomara.

Because Xiomara’s period arrived much earlier than Mami expected, Mami was perhaps not prepared for the change. Possibly, she was also frightened by the fact that her daughter was developing so quickly. No matter the explanation for Mami’s insensitive and borderline abusive behavior, Xiomara internalized her mother’s assertion that “[g]ood girls don’t wear tampones” (40). This early exchange may have initiated the intense conflicts that would soon characterize Xiomara’s relationship with her mother.

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The Poet X Elizabeth Acevedo

The Poet X essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Poet X by Acevado.

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The Poet X Essays

Elizabeth acevedo’s ode to adolescent power: culture, conflict, and reassurance in the poet x isabel acedo college.

Adolescence alone, as a transitional period from child to adult, marks a challenging time in an individual’s life. Often times, factors outside the mind and body seem to exist solely to aggravate this tremulous, question-filled period. Poet X ’s...

Discovering Self Worth through Spoken Word in "The Poet X" Olivia F. Vega 11th Grade

In Elizabeth Acevedo’s young adult novel, The Poet X, fifteen-year old Dominican-American Xiomara Batista describes her aspirations and personal life experiences in the form of poetic verse. Through her narration the reader learns that Xiomara’s...

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Poet X Lesson Plans for Teachers

Teaching Poet X

The Poet X lesson plan contains a variety of teaching materials that cater to all learning styles. Inside you'll find 30 Daily Lessons, 20 Fun Activities, 180 Multiple Choice Questions, 60 Short Essay Questions, 20 Essay Questions, Quizzes/Homework Assignments, Tests, and more. The lessons and activities will help students gain an intimate understanding of the text, while the tests and quizzes will help you evaluate how well the students have grasped the material. View a free sample

Target Grade: 7th-12th (Middle School and High School)

Length of Lesson Plan: Approximately 156 pages. Page count is estimated at 300 words per page. Length will vary depending on format viewed.

Browse The Poet X Lesson Plan:

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Completely customizable.

The Poet X lesson plan is downloadable in PDF and Word. The Word file is viewable with any PC or Mac and can be further adjusted if you want to mix questions around and/or add your own headers for things like "Name," "Period," and "Date." The Word file offers unlimited customizing options so that you can teach in the most efficient manner possible. Once you download the file, it is yours to keep and print for your classroom. View a FREE sample

Lesson Plan Calendars

The Lesson Plan Calendars provide daily suggestions about what to teach. They include detailed descriptions of when to assign reading, homework, in-class work, fun activities, quizzes, tests and more. Use the entire Poet X calendar, or supplement it with your own curriculum ideas. Calendars cover one, two, four, and eight week units. Determine how long your Poet X unit will be, then use one of the calendars provided to plan out your entire lesson.

Chapter Abstracts

Chapter abstracts are short descriptions of events that occur in each chapter of Poet X . They highlight major plot events and detail the important relationships and characteristics of important characters. The Chapter Abstracts can be used to review what the students have read, or to prepare the students for what they will read. Hand the abstracts out in class as a study guide, or use them as a "key" for a class discussion. They are relatively brief, but can serve to be an excellent refresher of Poet X for either a student or teacher.

Character and Object Descriptions

Character and Object Descriptions provide descriptions of the significant characters as well as objects and places in Poet X . These can be printed out and used as an individual study guide for students, a "key" for leading a class discussion, a summary review prior to exams, or a refresher for an educator. The character and object descriptions are also used in some of the quizzes and tests in this lesson plan. The longest descriptions run about 200 words. They become shorter as the importance of the character or object declines.

Daily Lessons

This section of the lesson plan contains 30 Daily Lessons. Daily Lessons each have a specific objective and offer at least three (often more) ways to teach that objective. Lessons include classroom discussions, group and partner activities, in-class handouts, individual writing assignments, at least one homework assignment, class participation exercises and other ways to teach students about Poet X in a classroom setting. You can combine daily lessons or use the ideas within them to create your own unique curriculum. They vary greatly from day to day and offer an array of creative ideas that provide many options for an educator.

Fun Classroom Activities

Fun Classroom Activities differ from Daily Lessons because they make "fun" a priority. The 20 enjoyable, interactive classroom activities that are included will help students understand Poet X in fun and entertaining ways. Fun Classroom Activities include group projects, games, critical thinking activities, brainstorming sessions, writing poems, drawing or sketching, and countless other creative exercises. Many of the activities encourage students to interact with each other, be creative and think "outside of the box," and ultimately grasp key concepts from the text by "doing" rather than simply studying. Fun activities are a great way to keep students interested and engaged while still providing a deeper understanding of Poet X and its themes.

Essay Questions/Writing Assignments

These 20 Essay Questions/Writing Assignments can be used as essay questions on a test, or as stand-alone essay topics for a take-home or in-class writing assignment on Poet X . Students should have a full understanding of the unit material in order to answer these questions. They often include multiple parts of the work and ask for a thorough analysis of the overall text. They nearly always require a substantial response. Essay responses are typically expected to be one (or more) page(s) and consist of multiple paragraphs, although it is possible to write answers more briefly. These essays are designed to challenge a student's understanding of the broad points in a work, interactions among the characters, and main points and themes of the text. But, they also cover many of the other issues specific to the work and to the world today.

Short Essay Questions

The 60 Short Essay Questions listed in this section require a one to two sentence answer. They ask students to demonstrate a deeper understanding of Poet X by describing what they've read, rather than just recalling it. The short essay questions evaluate not only whether students have read the material, but also how well they understand and can apply it. They require more thought than multiple choice questions, but are shorter than the essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

The 180 Multiple Choice Questions in this lesson plan will test a student's recall and understanding of Poet X . Use these questions for quizzes, homework assignments or tests. The questions are broken out into sections, so they focus on specific chapters within Poet X . This allows you to test and review the book as you proceed through the unit. Typically, there are 5-15 questions per chapter, act or section.

Evaluation Forms

Use the Oral Reading Evaluation Form when students are reading aloud in class. Pass the forms out before you assign reading, so students will know what to expect. You can use the forms to provide general feedback on audibility, pronunciation, articulation, expression and rate of speech. You can use this form to grade students, or simply comment on their progress.

Use the Writing Evaluation Form when you're grading student essays. This will help you establish uniform criteria for grading essays even though students may be writing about different aspects of the material. By following this form you will be able to evaluate the thesis, organization, supporting arguments, paragraph transitions, grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. of each student's essay.

Quizzes/Homework Assignments

The Quizzes/Homework Assignments are worksheets that can be used in a variety of ways. They pull questions from the multiple choice and short essay sections, the character and object descriptions, and the chapter abstracts to create worksheets that can be used for pop quizzes, in-class assignments and homework. Periodic homework assignments and quizzes are a great way to encourage students to stay on top of their assigned reading. They can also help you determine which concepts and ideas your class grasps and which they need more guidance on. By pulling from the different sections of the lesson plan, quizzes and homework assignments offer a comprehensive review of Poet X in manageable increments that are less substantial than a full blown test.

Use the Test Summary page to determine which pre-made test is most relevant to your students' learning styles. This lesson plan provides both full unit tests and mid-unit tests. You can choose from several tests that include differing combinations of multiple choice questions, short answer questions, short essay questions, full essay questions, character and object matching, etc. Some of the tests are designed to be more difficult than others. Some have essay questions, while others are limited to short-response questions, like multiple choice, matching and short answer questions. If you don't find the combination of questions that best suits your class, you can also create your own test on Poet X .

Create Your Own Quiz or Test

You have the option to Create Your Own Quiz or Test. If you want to integrate questions you've developed for your curriculum with the questions in this lesson plan, or you simply want to create a unique test or quiz from the questions this lesson plan offers, it's easy to do. Cut and paste the information from the Create Your Own Quiz or Test page into a Word document to get started. Scroll through the sections of the lesson plan that most interest you and cut and paste the exact questions you want to use into your new, personalized Poet X lesson plan.

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Coral reefs: Battlegrounds for survival in a changing climate

by Harrison Tasoff, University of California - Santa Barbara

Coral reefs, those vibrant underwater cities, stand on the precipice of collapse. While rising ocean temperatures and coral bleaching grab headlines, a new essay in Current Biology reveals a hidden layer of complexity in this fight for survival: the often-overlooked roles of the reefs' smallest inhabitants.

Scientists have long understood the vital partnership between corals and their symbiotic algae, but work by researchers at UC Santa Barbara and University of Georgia highlights how the fate of entire reefs may hinge on the complex interplay between a diverse cast of fish and invertebrate residents. These tiny tenants, it turns out, can be both heroes and villains in the drama.

"It's like a bustling city teetering on the edge," explained co-author Adrian Stier, a marine biologist at UC Santa Barbara. "We're only now realizing that it's a microcosmic battleground where seemingly insignificant creatures can be the difference between a reef thriving or succumbing to human impacts."

Take, for example, the humble damselfish. A recent study published in PLOS ONE found that corals inhabited by these tiny fish were far more likely to withstand and recover from heat waves . The researchers suggest the fish provide a crucial nutrient boost to their coral hosts, effectively fertilizing them with their ammonia-rich waste. This finding echoes similar work published in Global Change Biology , where damselfish were shown to help corals resist bleaching by fostering the symbiosis between corals and their photosynthesizing zooxanthellae.

But it's not just about boosting resources. Another study, also published in PLOS ONE , revealed that certain territorial damselfish act as coral bodyguards, protecting their homes from predators and allowing the corals to expend less energy on defense and more on growth and survival.

"This new research serves as a powerful reminder that even the smallest creatures can play a significant role in the health of our planet," Stier said.

However, not all coral residents are so benevolent. The essay also highlights the darker side of these micro-relationships. Parasitic snails, like those featured in a Nature Ecology & Evolution study, can weaken their coral hosts, making them more susceptible to bleaching. Other creatures, like the vermetid snail investigated in a study published in Ecology , can disrupt the delicate balance of the reef, outcompeting corals for space and resources.

Even crabs, often lauded for their cleaning services, can turn from helpful housekeepers to harmful hoarders. Research in Coral Reefs revealed that under extreme heat stress, certain crab species turn aggressive, fighting among themselves and ultimately harming their coral homes.

"It's a constant dance between beneficial partnerships and harmful interactions," Stier said. "Deciphering this intricate web of life is critical if we want to effectively protect coral reefs ."

While tackling climate change remains the ultimate solution to safeguarding coral reefs, understanding the complex dynamics between corals and their miniature residents could be crucial for buying precious time for these vital ecosystems. By identifying and protecting the heroes, and mitigating the damage caused by the villains, scientists hope to tip the scales in favor of coral reef survival.

Journal information: Nature Ecology & Evolution , Ecology , Global Change Biology , Current Biology , PLoS ONE , Coral Reefs

Provided by University of California - Santa Barbara

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