A shared external or internal structure or dwelling that houses multiple organisms, especially in colonial animals like bryozoans and corals.
From Greek koinos (common) + oikos (house) + -ium (place), directly meaning 'common house,' applied in biology to describe colonial animal structures dating from the 1800s.
A coral reef is really a giant coenoecium—each little polyp (animal) contributes to one massive shared skeleton that can last thousands of years and support entire ecosystems.
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