The break-up of the symbiosis, known as bleaching, which occurs when seawater warms, is the reason coral reefs are the first ecosystem-scale casualties of climate change. Half the world’s coral reefs have died, largely from bleaching, and by some predictions that number will rise to 99 percent by mid-century. Yet the nature of the relationship between coral and algae remains in many ways a mystery.
Some researchers, resource managers, and conservationists have advocated restoring populations of algae-eating reef fish, such as parrotfish in order to boost resilience of the world’s coral reefs.
As an idea that began as a joke, critter-driven ocean mixing has long been controversial. Now scientists have caught spawning anchovies causing turbulence and stirring the sea.
