Australia is home to some of the world’s most beautiful reefs. This includes the lush Great Southern Reef, which wraps around Australia’s southern coastline, and the world-renowned Great Barrier Reef.
But the corals of the Great Barrier Reef and the kelp forests of the south are both plagued by prickly problems – voracious starfish and sea urchins.
The coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish is one of the greatest threats to the Great Barrier Reef. And on the temperate Great Southern Reef, long-spined sea urchins have eaten their way through thousands of hectares of kelp forests. Both species are native but can boom in numbers, and the urchins have spread to new areas due to climate change.
Scientists tend to study these two species as isolated threats. But our new study shows that while they pose high but differing risks, investing in control programs and innovative research could help curb these two prickly problems.
For more information, click here: Prickly starfish and urchins are decimating Australia’s reefs. But we could find ways to protect them | University of Tasmania
