Playing the Sound of a Healthy Reef Could Help Save Corals
- by Jake Bell
- in Research
- — Dec 3, 2019
In a bid to revive this delicate ecosystem, scientists from the United Kingdom and Australia conducted a study that involved using speakers underwater near damaged coral reefs to make them sound healthy and attract fish, potentially kick-starting the natural recovery process of coral reefs and their dependent life forms.
The researchers worked from October through December 2017 in a lagoon in the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef that has a large, shallow reef that runs along the coastline. The issue of global warming has caused a widespread damage to ecosystem of the coral reef.
The mission was carried out on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the world's largest coral reef system, which had been damaged owing to above average water temperature in the wake of climate change.
One of the study's other co-authors, Andy Radford, noted that "acoustic enrichment" is promising, as it can help bring in different species to maintain a healthy ecosystem, but more efforts are needed for reef conservation and recovery.
An underwater loudspeaker on a coral reef.
More news: Huawei smartphones, networking equipment uses non-US componentsThe study found that broadcasting healthy reef sound doubled the total number of fish arriving onto experimental patches of reef habitat, as well as increasing the number of species present by 50%.
Senior writer Professor Steve Simpson, also of Exeter College, defined: 'Healthy coral reefs are remarkably noisy locations - the crackle of snapping exiguous and the whoops and grunts of fish mix to construct a elegant biological soundscape.
Severe bleaching of coral has been seen throughout the world, especially in Australia's Great Barrier Reef (pictured).
To attract the young fish to dead reefs researchers placed loudspeakers that would emulate the "soundscape" of a healthy reef.
Simpson added that Juvenile fish typically respond to these sounds when they are looking for a place to settle. Some of those fishes play significant role in cleaning the reef and recycling the nutrients. They are then fixed under water to the center speaker patches, angling them up to ensure the sound was distributed in all directions evenly.
More news: Fantagio Rookie Actor Cha Inha Found Dead At Age 27According to the report, there were twice as many juvenile damselfishes on reefs that were acoustically enriched over the six-week study period.
The researchers acknowledged that drawing fish again to lifeless or dying reefs is not going to reverse the harm by itself.
Tim Gordon, a PhD student at Exeter College, and the look for's lead writer said: 'Fish are wanted for coral reefs to operate as healthy ecosystems.
We did an experiment where we used underwater loudspeakers to make quiet, degraded patches of coral rubble sound like they were healthy reefs.
Mr Gordon added: 'Whilst attracting extra fish won't place coral reefs on its possess, new techniques admire this give us extra instruments within the fight to place these treasured and vulnerable ecosystems.
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