Latest Sponge reef Stories

Study by Wildlife Conservation Society and University of the Azores identifies additional risks to reefs stemming from pollution and heavy fishing Microbes, sponges, and worms—the side effects of pollution and heavy fishing—are adding insult to injury in Kenya's imperiled reef systems, according to a recent study by the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Azores. The authors of the study have found that pollution and overfishing on reef systems have an ecological...

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online The Middle Reef, part of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, is growing more quickly than reefs in other areas with lower levels of sediment stress, a new study has found. Rapid coral reef growth has been identified in environments with large amounts of sediment, conditions previously thought to be detrimental to reef growth. The study, led by the University of Exeter with an international team of scientists, is published today (1...

Healthy reefs with more corals and fish generate predictably greater levels of noise, according to researchers working in Panama. This has important implications for understanding the behaviour of young fish, and provides an exciting new approach for monitoring environmental health by listening to reefs.Contrary to Jacques Cousteau's 'Silent World', coral reefs are surprisingly noisy places, with fish and invertebrates producing clicks and grunts which combine to produce cacophonies of noise....

A new study appearing in Restoration Ecology describes a novel technique for reattaching large sponges that have been dislodged from coral reefs. The findings could be generally applied to the restoration of other large sponge species removed by human activities or storm events.20 specimens of the Caribbean giant barrel sponge were removed and reattached at Conch Reef off of Key Largo, Florida in 2004 and 2005 at depths of 15m and 30m. The sponges were affixed to the reef using sponge holders...

Tropical oceans are known as the deserts of the sea. And yet this unlikely environment is the very place where the rich and fertile coral reef grows. Dutch researcher Jasper de Goeij investigated how caves in the coral reef ensure the reef's continued existence. Although sponges in these coral caves take up a lot of dissolved organic material, they scarcely grow. However, they do discard a lot of cells that in turn provide food for the organisms on the reef.Caves in coral reefs are the...

Bottom trawling, an industrial fishing method that drags large, heavy nets across the seafloor stirs up huge, billowing plumes of sediment on shallow seafloors that can be seen from space.As a result of scientific studies showing that bottom trawling kills vast numbers of corals, sponges, fishes and other animals, bottom trawling has been banned in a growing number of places in recent years. Now satellite images show that spreading clouds of mud remain suspended in the sea long after the...

In order to protect coral reefs it is important to understand how both the reefs and their environment function. Researchers often concentrate on subjects such as physical damage to reefs, the bleaching of coral and coral diseases. Sander Scheffers investigated a lesser-studied subject: the nutrient cycle on the coral reef and the role that organisms living in cavities, such as sponges, play in this. Underwater cameraTo determine the nature and size of this role, Scheffers first of all...