[Coral-List] Underwater loudspeakers could help restore damaged coral reefs

[Peter Sale]

Doug and Coral List,
The media, helped perhaps by an overhyped press release, are at it again.  I'm referring to the sensational headline (The Telegraph, MSN, no doubt elsewhere also) that underwater loudspeakers will help restore coral reefs.  The research result (which is perfectly appropriate as science) tested whether patches built from dead coral could attract settling larval fishes more effectively if they sounded like real reef.  They apparently did.  But.  The artificial patches were just a few meters away from living coral.  The study did not follow fish for very long - patches were monitored over 6 weeks, and the species list, mainly damselfishes, included numerous species that normally recruit to rubble habitat.  The sounds resulted in about 3 times the number of young fish being counted on the treatment patches compared to the controls.

It's true that reef fishes of many species, particularly herbivores, can help maintain coral dominance relative to algae in reef habitat.  But to have the media trumpet the news that sounds will help restore reefs, based on these results,  is utter nonsense.  Getting rid of GHG emissions, and correcting the numerous local impacts on reefs, will help restore them.  At least we might expect criticism of such distortions on coral-list.  (I've not read the press release so do not know whether the authors encouraged this sensationalism by the media.)

Peter Sale
University of Windsor
sale at uwindsor.ca
petersalebooks.com