The case
A reef as an organized multispecies system with coordinated spawning, herbivory and bleaching responses.
What it can show
Its role drifted: “strongest challenge to indiscriminate agency attribution” (A100), then “no longer categorically exclude a reef-level will” (A116), then “our most useful counterexample” (A131), then “a distinct question” (A139). Each was reasonable. None was recorded against the last, which is how a case quietly ends up arguing both sides. Its current use is as a boundary case for QUESTION-009.