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qgyh2 maxwellhill BritishEnglishPolice anutensil AutoModerator kwangqengelele Pharnaces_II slapchopsuey SarahLee 607 Killer starfish are eating the Great Barrier Reef by smothering and digesting it s flesh. Scientists are blaming the problem on fertiliser from nearby sugar cane farms. (independent.co.uk) submitted 8 hours ago by YellowCurtains 35 comments share all 35 comments sorted by: best [ ]LordoftheGodKings 18 points 7 hours ago Saw a great talk on this at ASM 2012. Here are my notes from the session (unedit ed) Forest Rohwer: The Shifting Holobiont: Mutualism to Pathogenesis crawling holobionts and microbial maps Growing atop one another in coral reefs = corals, bacteria, algae, protists, vir us. And you can mix and match to get different ecological behaviors. First crush up the coral and isolate bacteria and sequence with metagenomics. Primarily het erotrophs eating carbohydrates and proteins to produce smaller peptides and smal ler carbs. Don't eat amino acids or lipids which is odd. Nitrogen cycling is als o interesting. Use Cyanobacteria and ammonification by fungi. Nitrofixation by b acteria and archaea. Corals and algaes compete? ~150-500k different species along 100 meters of coral s. Most nutrients don't goto the bacteria but is eaten away by the coral eating fis h and the algae. Turfs feed microbes and leads to coral disease. Coral and algae fight each other? What you find is coral wins when no nearby islands are inhabi ted. Believe it is due to dissolved organic carbons. Do a diffusion chamber with algae and coral on opposite sides and coral will die. So algae is doing somethi ng. They die due to the coral becoming hypoxic and the algae becomes super oxic. And if you remove algae hypoxia goes away. Interfaces between two have a set of microbes, and then coral and algae also have specific microbes. Several million interfaces going on. Coral produces gfp but fluorescence decreases on the mats and is an indicator of stress. Eutrophication study - corals die when you dump nutrients onto coral. Iron is li miting in ocean. Line island are carbonates. Shipwrecks happen. Coral covered wi th black precipitate at ship wreck sites. Coral is replaced by black algae, whic

h feeds the microbes. At sites you find elevated iron, even if ship is long gone . If you do epigrnomics you find lots of virulence and fast growers. Corals are not poisoned by iron. permalink [ ]Shiroi_Kage 18 points 3 hours ago TL;TR: Nutrients cause algal bloom which causes a hypoxic zone killing the coral s. permalink parent [ ]ncalsbeek 15 points 5 hours ago We have these in Hawaii too. Crown-of-thorns don't have many natural predators, and since they're invasive they tend to take over the reef. But Triton's Trumpet sea snails are good predators. There was a cool YouTube video awhile back showi ng a Triton's Trumpet hunting one down. Unfortunately, since Triton's Trumpets have been depleted (for both food and bec ause their shells are sold as souvenirs) they're still an ongoing problem out he re. permalink [ ]WestEndRiot 10 points 2 hours ago Noooo don't even hint at the possibility of using another species to tackle anot her. We've got a bad history of attempting that in this country. permalink parent [ ]exatron 18 points 1 hour ago That's the beauty of it. When winter comes around the gorillas simply freeze to death. permalink parent [ ]i_lived_with_dinos 5 points 5 hours ago Same in New Caledonia. They were exterminated by the locals to use the shells as instruments and now the starfish are eating the coral reef. permalink parent [ ]tipsystatistic 2 points 2 hours ago Yeah, if you put a tritons trumpet on top of a COT it will immediately attack it . Otherwise they're pretty hard to kill. Cutting them up won't kill them. permalink parent [ ]poops_in_public 2 points 2 hours ago

TIL snails can have stingers permalink parent [ ]redkey42 1 point 1 hour ago cool action vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2eY5mpNdDs permalink parent [ ]ApatheticDragon 1 point 40 minutes ago Didn't help that divers used to have a policy of catching them, cutting them in half and throwing them back assuming there were dead. But these buggers like, I believe some other starfish, can regenerate from this, basically making the acti on pointless. permalink parent [ ]chainsawvigilante 1 point 40 minutes ago There are isolated rare incidents of crown of thorns outbreaks in Hawaii. Genera lly they are not an issue. I just want to make clear that there is no reason to kill these animals on sight in Hawaiian reefs. If there is an excessive amount o f crown of thorns starfish in one area and you can reasonably suggest they are d amaging that area please report it to Reef Check Hawaii. permalink parent [ ]DarthMountain 7 points 2 hours ago No need to be alarmed. I'm sure all the dredging silt we're about to dump on the reef will take care of those starfish. permalink [ ]sizeablefern 4 points 1 hour ago I remember when this was in the news in Australia approximately 10 years ago. permalink [ ]JustMakesItAllUp 1 point 16 minutes ago it was old news when I was at school 30 years ago permalink parent [ ]Merrdank 3 points 1 hour ago Can we... can we eat starfish?

permalink [ ]hwkns 4 points 1 hour ago It is kind of old news. Crown of thorn starfish were recognized a few decades ag o as a problematic invasive species. permalink [ ]jimmiller196 5 points 3 hours ago Patrick! permalink [ ]trippygrape 6 points 3 hours ago You know, if you think about it this way, it's incredibly morbid. Patrick is can nibalizing Spongebob. permalink parent [ ]JustMakesItAllUp 1 point 13 minutes ago telepathically controlled starfish? permalink parent [ ]blessedcheesemaker 6 points 5 hours ago Starfish are assholes permalink [ ]temporalwanderer 4 points 2 hours ago They're just trying to get a leg up... permalink parent [ ]fungalduck 2 points 2 hours ago I'm 99% sure that reefs are not made of 'flesh'. If they are, I really need to g et to that reef because it sounds god damn awesome. permalink [ ]adaminc 9 points 2 hours ago Corals are invertebrate creatures that live on a calcium carbonate structure tha t they build. They eat, then secrete calcium carbonate to form the reefs. So yes, they are fleshy. When you see a bleached coral reef, what you are looking at is that internal str ucture, because all the coral polyps have died off.

permalink parent [ ]fungalduck -1 points 1 hour ago You know... I know your right, and I'd up-vote you twice if I could, because I d o actually agree - but I actually can't find a definition of 'flesh' that applie s to coral since they are invertebrates, and not vertebrates. But then I'm a bottle of red deep here, so in all honesty I've only checked a fe w dictionary links on Google & Wikipedia. permalink parent [ ]adaminc 6 points 54 minutes ago What does it matter if they are invertebrates or vertebrates, the major differen ce between them is whether or not they have a backbone. Worms are fleshy. Flesh is just any soft part of the body made of skin, muscles, and fat. permalink parent [ ]fungalduck 1 point 10 minutes ago Like I said, you were right - I just found it to be curious. permalink parent [ ]Bear4188 2 points 1 hour ago Starfish eat coral. They grind it up, digest the tiny organic creatures, and poo p it out as sand. permalink parent [ ]joker_or_thief 1 point 4 minutes ago Talking to a researcher I'm working with, apparently they spread via a series of islands like stepping stones to get to the great barrier reef about a year afte r large flooding events (which I presume washes fertilizer off the land into the sea), the researchers idea to save the reef? "Bomb the shit out of one of the s tepping stone islands/seamounts". permalink [ ]Oznog99 1 point 3 hours ago So this whole Starfish Wasting Disease thing is a GREAT idea! permalink [ ]arrenlex 1 point 2 hours ago Starfish don't kill the Great Barrier Reef; fertiliser from nearby sugar cane fa

rms kills the Great Barrier Reef. -- Wayne LaPierre permalink [ ]Beckahh 1 point 12 minutes ago The Great Barrier Reef has bigger issues right now. Like the Prime Minister Tony Abbott recently approving the expanding of a coal port and dredging/dumping in the Reefs waters. permalink [ ]Endless_Candy 1 point 4 minutes ago Do you just read what you want to read and disregard everything else? They're sh ifting the mud on the port floor and dumping it on top of the ocean floor, 70 ki lometers away from the reef. Save the mud 2014. permalink parent [+]Angrant96 comment score below threshold (2 children) about blog about team source code advertise jobs help wiki FAQ reddiquette rules contact us tools mobile firefox extension chrome extension buttons widget <3 reddit gold store redditgifts reddit.tv radio reddit Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy . 2014 reddit inc. All rights reserved. REDDIT and the ALIEN Logo are registered trademarks of reddit inc. p