HEAT WAVES CREATES SEA GRAVES AUTHOR: REV. LEO WOODBERRY
One of the key herbivores on coral reefs is the long-spined sea urchin (Diadem antelabrum), which grazes on seaweed that can overgrow and smother corals. Sea urchins help maintain a balance between corals and seaweeds on the reef. However, in the mid-1980s, more than 90% of the long-spined sea urchins in the western Atlantic and Caribbean died due to a mysterious disease. Since then, their population has been slow to recover, and their absence has contributed to the decline of coral reefs in the region. Scientists are trying to restore the sea urchin population by using aquaculture techniques to grow and release them into the reef. They have found that feeding dried seaweed to baby sea urchins can help them grow faster and behave more naturally than feeding them commercial pellets. Restoring sea urchins to coral reefs could help reduce seaweed overgrowth and enhance coral recovery from bleaching events. However, this is not a simple or quick solution, as it requires large-scale production and monitoring of sea urchins, as well as addressing other threats to coral reefs such as climate change. The only way that we can reduce the growing impacts of climate change is to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases that we are using every day on our planet. That means burning less electricity that bees moving towards solar powered energy, wind powered energy and also using electric vehicles are a few of the major solutions that we can use.
38 E. J. TODAY
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