n the last 27 years half of the Great Barrier Reef has been decimated, says an 2012 article from the

n the last 27 years half of the Great Barrier Reef has been decimated, says an 2012 article from the BBC.A World Heritage Site, the reef has seen better days. Researchers at the Australian Institute of Marine Science have gathered information from 2,258 separate surveys over the course of 27 years and have broken down the damage as follows:48% caused by tropical cyclones42% caused by the coral-feeding Crown-of-Thorns Starfish10% caused by coral bleachingCo-author of the report, Hugh Sweatman, explained that coral could recover “But recovery takes 10-20 years. At present, the intervals between the disturbances are generally too short for full recovery and that’s causing the long-term losses.”Dealing with the starfish would conceivably be the easiest task; water quality in the area would have to be improved by lowering or eliminating the amount of industrial agricultural run-off that nourish the algae blooms that the starfish larvae feed on.But why am I telling you old news?That’s because this week the AFP (Agence France-Presse) reported that scientists have decided to go after the starfish with a bacterial culture that can kill the Crown-of-Thorns Starfish in about 24 hours. Any starfish that comes into contact with an infected individual will also become infected. Morgan Prachett, a professor at James Cook University’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies says, “This compound looks very promising from that standpoint – though there is a lot of tank testing still to do before we would ever consider trialing it in the sea.”The threat of another outbreak of the Crown-of-thorns Starfish in the Great Barrier Reef is looming on the horizon - as outbreaks of the starfish have been reported from Guam, French Polynesia, Paupa New Guinea and the central Indian Ocean - as many as 87,000 starfish were purged from one beach in the Philippines. Equipping a diver with bacteria that can kill up to 500 of them in one dive is much better than the method used now; divers needing to inject multiple starfish with poison in multiple dives. If the reef is allowed to endure its destructors (tropical storms which are made worse by global warming, destructive starfish, bleaching as a result of global warming) then the size of the reef could halve again in a decade.Morgan Pratchett also stated, “In developing a biological control you have to be very careful to target only the species you are aiming at, and be certain that it can cause no harm to other species or to the wider environment.” The Crown-of-thorns is certainly a threat to the reef, accounting for almost half its damage, but completely killing the species off would be counter-intuitive. I hope that the researchers can account for every possible scenario before they decide to utilize the bacteria as a cure for the reef’s ails. Otherwise, this could end up as one of those stories of good intentions ending poorly.-TRSource/further reading: http://www.afp.com/en/news/topstories/australia-scientists-tackle-reef-killing-starfishhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19800253 -- source link

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