• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

World-First Approach To Save Corals Plays Their Babies A Reef Soundtrack

April 17, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

In the Maldives, a team of scientists are putting on what they’ve coined “Live Aid for corals”. Previous investigations have revealed that when convincing baby corals (aka larvae) to set up camp, they can be swayed by the sound of a bustling reef, but will avoid areas that are too quiet. 

So, how can we convince them to settle on reefs that need rebuilding? With some underwater speakers and a bit of creative realtor work.

Advertisement

Prof Steve Simpson of the University of Bristol has been studying the soundscape of underwater environments to see what they can tell us about the health of a habitat, a monitoring approach known as “ecoacoustics”. We often imagine corals as quiet and stationary, but the truth is that a healthy reef is a symphony of sound, and the corals living there had to swim to join the party – a fact that knocked presenter Steve Backshall’s socks off.

When asked what the most standout moment from filming for Our Changing Planet, Backshall told the BBC: “It would be finding that coral as it moves, as zooplankton can hear the difference between denuded and healthy reefs and it could swim towards the healthy one to set up and start growing there.”

We’re trying to use the soundscape to bring in the next generation that then can start to create the healthy reef that makes the sound itself.

Prof Steve Simpson

The discovery was one that even coral expert Simpson didn’t see coming.

Advertisement

“I remember the first time we worked on this where someone in the Caribbean had our sound systems, and [they] said, ‘We’re going to chuck some corals in the choice chambers.’ And I said, ‘You’re crazy, there’s no way a coral can respond to sound, it doesn’t have ears, it doesn’t have a brain.’ And sure enough, he sent me the videos the next day of these corals moving towards the sound,” Simpson told IFLScience.

The feat is made possible thanks to the wet-tennis-ball-like shape of coral larvae, that use their fuzzy hair cells to achieve directed swimming. Once the team had established that sound was important in dictating that direction, they got to work seeing how science could use this understanding to help establish new reefs.

“We are now using speakers to actually create these artificially healthy environments in terms of the soundscape, which call in the next generation of animals to give that reef and accelerated recovery,” he explained. “So, we can call in the fish, we can call in the corals. And we’re trying to use the soundscape to bring in the next generation that then can start to create the healthy reef that makes the sound itself.”

Advertisement

It’s a world-first approach for corals, having only been tested on experimental scales in Australia with a focus on fish communities. In Our Changing Planet: Restoring Our Reefs, Simpson teams up with Prof Peter Harrison (father of “coral IVF”) to persuade buckets of coral larvae to set up camp, and they’ll be returning to see how the new “recruits” are doing a year on. Excitingly, those that are established could be expected to start spawning by the age of three.

It’s no secret that corals and reefs have been suffering under environmental changes caused by the ongoing climate crisis, but as Simpson urges, there is light at the end of the tunnel if we can just get through the next few testing decades.

Prof Peter Harrison, Prof Steve Simpson, presenter Steve Backshall.

Left to right: Prof Peter Harrison, Prof Steve Simpson, presenter Steve Backshall.

Image credit: BBC Studios/Gemma Gilbride

“Five years ago, any coral reef restoration that I was involved in, I had a sneaking suspicion that [we] were just prolonging the death of coral reefs, it was inevitable that we were going to lose them with climate change,” he said. “The two things that have started to really get all of us excited are the fact that we’re getting these methods, that are increasingly scalable, that we can work over much, much larger areas, and around the world with fairly low tech, but high output solutions, and also that we’re seeing change in the data about climate change.”

 If we can save coral reefs, we can save anything.

Prof Steve Simpson

“We know that coral reefs are going to have a really rough next two or three decades, but there’s a good chance that by the end of this century, it will be a better time than it is now for coral reefs… I think it’s starting to feel like it’s all hands to the pump while we’ve got this crisis, but it’s going to be worth it in the long run if we can keep coral reefs alive now. And if we can save coral reefs, we can save anything.”

Advertisement

Tune in to BBC One on 21 April, 6pm BST, to see Our Changing Planet: Restoring Our Reefs, or catch it on iPlayer.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. U.S. banking lobby groups oppose proposed tax reporting law
  2. Video Shows Albert Einstein Explaining His Most Famous Equation
  3. Secret Service Agent At JFK Assassination Casts Doubt On Single Bullet Theory
  4. If Brain Transplants Like The One In Poor Things Were Possible, This Is How They Might Work

Source Link: World-First Approach To Save Corals Plays Their Babies A Reef Soundtrack

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Project Hail Mary Trailer First Look: What Would Happen If The Sun Got Darker?
  • Newly Discovered Cell Structure Might Hold Key To Understanding Devastating Genetic Disorders
  • What Is Kakeya’s Needle Problem, And Why Do We Want To Solve It?
  • “I Wasn’t Prepared For The Sheer Number Of Them”: Cave Of Mummified Never-Before-Seen Eyeless Invertebrates Amazes Scientists
  • Asteroid Day At 10: How The World Is More Prepared Than Ever To Face Celestial Threats
  • What Happened When A New Zealand Man Fell Butt-First Onto A Powerful Air Hose
  • Ancient DNA Confirms Women’s Unexpected Status In One Of The Oldest Known Neolithic Settlements
  • Earth’s Weather Satellites Catch Cloud Changes… On Venus
  • Scientists Find Common Factors In People Who Have “Out-Of-Body” Experiences
  • Shocking Photos Reveal Extent Of Overfishing’s Impact On “Shrinking” Cod
  • Direct Fusion Drive Could Take Us To Sedna During Its Closest Approach In 11,000 Years
  • Earth’s Energy Imbalance Is More Than Double What It Should Be – And We Don’t Know Why
  • We May Have Misjudged A Fundamental Fact About The Cambrian Explosion
  • The Shoebill Is A Bird So Bizarre That Some People Don’t Even Believe It’s Real
  • Colossal’s “Dire Wolves” Are Now 6 Months Old – And They’ve Doubled In Size
  • How To Fake A Fossil: Find Out More In Issue 36 Of CURIOUS – Out Now
  • Is It True Earth Used To Take 420 Days To Orbit The Sun?
  • One Of The Ocean’s “Most Valuable Habitats” Grows The Only Flowers Known To Bloom In Seawater
  • World’s Largest Digital Camera Snaps 2,104 New Asteroids In 10 Hours, Mice With 2 Dads Father Their Own Offspring, And Much More This Week
  • Simplest Explanation For “Anomalous” Signals Coming From Underneath Antarctica Ruled Out
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version