2023-10-07 14:50:54
Scientists are concerned regarding the Red Sea’s famous coral reefs following discovering that a mysterious illness is decimating a population of sea urchins essential to their survival. No explanation has yet been found.
Researcher Lisa-Maria Schmidt and her colleagues from Tel Aviv University began their investigation in January, when they learned that off the coast of Eilat, many sea urchins had died in a very short time.
The scientists, says Lisa-Maria Schmidt, went to a site known to be teeming with Diadema setosum and they only found “skeletons and piles of thorns” of these diadem sea urchins, a species characterized by its very long radioles and a clearly visible orange circle on a black body.
They thought that a one-time chemical spill or an episode of pollution might have played a role in the deaths. But in the two weeks that followed, the Diadema setosum a little further down the coast at the inter-university institute for marine sciences were affected in turn. In less than 48 hours, all these sea urchins installed in tanks fed by water from the Red Sea became extinct.
“Scary”
Scientists have also realized that another species of sea urchin (Echinothrix calamaris) is also the victim of massive mortality in the same waters, but that apart from these two varieties, other populations continue to flourish among the corals.
According to Lisa-Maria Schmidt, Diadema setosum were the most common species of sea urchins off the coast of Eilat and their disappearance might have a devastating effect on the environment, as these marine animals feed on very blooming algae. fast. By consuming them, they prevent them from covering the corals, which need access to light to grow.
Algae “grow more easily than corals, they suffocate them and thus kill entire areas of reefs,” she explains. The massive mortality of sea urchins is something “particularly frightening” for the Red Sea where the corals “are known to be robust and I think people have placed a lot of hope in these reefs”, alarms Mya Breitbart, biologist at the University of South Florida, USA.
“We know that waterborne pathogens can easily be transported by ship. We need to work to find out, because, for example, if it’s shipping, that’s something we can address.” , explains Omri Bronstein, specialist in marine invertebrates at Tel Aviv University, in the 12:45 p.m. of RTS.
If they only extend under 0.2% of the sea surface, coral reefs would shelter more than 25% of the world’s marine biodiversity.
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