Sea cucumbers

Sea cucumbers are slow-moving animals, living on the bottom of the sand substrate, sandy mud or in a reef environment. Sea cucumbers are an important component in the food chain in coral reefs and their associated ecosystems at various trophic levels. Sea cucumbers play an important role as deposit feeders and suspension feeders. In the Indo-Pacific region, on reefs that are not under exploitation pressure, the density of sea cucumbers can be more than 35 fish per m2, where each individual can process 80 grams of dry weight sediment per day.