A healthy coral reef is noisy, full of the croaks, purrs, and grunts of various fishes and the crackling of snapping shrimp.
A healthy coral reef is noisy, full of the croaks, purrs, and grunts of various fishes and the crackling of snapping shrimp. Research suggests that larval animals use this symphony of sounds to help them determine where they should live and grow.
Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) recently demonstrated that replaying healthy reef sounds could potentially be used to encourage coral larvae to recolonize damaged or degraded reefs. A reef that has been degraded – whether by coral bleaching, disease, or direct human impacts – can’t support the same diversity of species and has a much quieter, less rich soundscape. In a paper published on Wednesday, March 13, in Royal Society Open Science, the researchers showed that broadcasting the soundscape of a healthy reef at a degraded reef caused coral larvae to settle at significantly higher rates.
“What we’re showing is that you can actively induce coral settlement by playing sounds,” said Nadège Aoki, a doctoral candidate at WHOI and first author on the paper. “You can go to a reef that is degraded in some way and add in the sounds of biological activity from a healthy reef, potentially helping this really important step in the coral life cycle.”
Read more at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Image: A reef that has been degraded – whether by coral bleaching, disease, or direct human impacts – can’t support the same diversity of species and has a much quieter, less rich soundscape. A new paper from researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution shows that sound could potentially be a vital tool in the effort to restore coral reefs. (Photo by: Dan Mele, ©Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
