Sea cucumbers, scavengers of the seafloor that resemble the cylindrical vegetable, have been consumed as a delicacy in Asia for hundreds of years.
However in latest many years, they’ve been severely overharvested to a degree that they’re now fairly uncommon.
New analysis I helped conduct suggests their repopulation might play an necessary position in defending and revitalizing one other sort of endangered marine organism: corals.
Coral reefs are in decline around the globe partly resulting from illnesses, a few of that are related to sediment on the seafloor.
In a number of discipline experiments involving corals in Moorea, French Polynesia, and round Palmyra Atoll, analysis scientist Cody Clements and I, together with two different colleagues engaged on marine microbes, discovered that sea cucumbers grazed and consumed micro organism within the sediment, and that sea cucumber presence prevented pathogens from sickening co-occurring corals.
We discovered this by both eradicating sea cucumbers from sure sand patches, whereas leaving them in others, or by caging corals with and with out sea cucumbers contained in the cages. In each experiments, corals close to sea cucumbers had been strikingly much less prone to change into diseased and die.
Sea cucumbers are the janitors of tropical seas. Simply as a vacuum cleaner consumes grime and fills up its bag, sea cucumbers devour micro organism and decaying organics from the seafloor and convert this into sea cucumber physique mass, decreasing the “meals” obtainable to assist development of microbial pathogens.
Overharvesting of sea cucumbers over the previous few hundred years, however particularly in latest many years, might have contributed to the dire state of immediately’s coral reefs.
Think about should you cease vacuuming a teen’s room. It will get cluttered and soiled in a short time and finally turns into unhealthy.
That’s what has been occurring to coral reefs, particularly as people heat oceans and add organics and vitamins that facilitate microbial development and pathogenicity.
And these adjustments are occurring in opposition to a background of further stresses, corresponding to ocean warming and overharvesting of fish species necessary to coral well being and survival.
The inhabitants of sea cucumbers is so low, in reality, that my staff and I had been making an attempt for years to discover a location the place there have been sufficient of them to review when it comes to their results on the bigger group.
Coral reefs are declining at dramatic charges, particularly as temperatures rise and people proceed to pollute the ocean.
Coral reefs assist about 25% of marine biodiversity, and lots of of tens of millions of people depend upon reefs for meals safety, tourism and safety from storm waves.
Whereas repopulating sea cucumbers is unlikely to avoid wasting coral reefs with out additionally taking different actions, doing so might assist sluggish reef losses, shopping for nations extra time to cut back ocean warming, overfishing and air pollution, and finally stabilize the important ecosystem providers that corals maintain.
This text by Mark Hay, from Georgia Institute of Know-how, was initially printed by The Dialog.
