Control efforts such as the removal of shipwrecks and application of chlorine may help mitigate the damaging effects of corallimorph, which is a type of invasive anemone, on valuable coral reefs in the Central Pacific Ocean, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey study.
Control efforts such as the removal of shipwrecks and application of chlorine may help mitigate the damaging effects of corallimorph, which is a type of invasive anemone, on valuable coral reefs in the Central Pacific Ocean, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey study.
“Coral reefs are home to a significant diversity of marine life, provide valuable economic and environmental services to millions of people, buffer shorelines from erosion and waves and can serve as a resource for the development of new medicines,” said Thierry Work, a USGS scientist and the lead author of the study.
Corallimorphs, or CM, can rapidly spread in coral reefs that have been degraded by environmental or man-made disturbances. At the Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Central Pacific, researchers found CM expanding and smothering otherwise pristine coral reefs in an area near a shipwreck. Starting in 2007, USGS scientists and partners surveyed the CM-infested coral reef before and after removal of the shipwreck. They found that wreckage removal helped reduce the proportion of highly CM-infested areas from 21 percent to 14 percent, marking the first time that shipwreck removal was shown to have beneficial effects for reef recovery from CM.
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Image via USGS.
