GR: Conservation efforts made too late will be ineffective. There are new areas designated as wilderness in the western U. S. that are dominated by invasive weeds.
Originally posted on SAVES Club:
Young corals, fish turned off by smell of damaged habitats
Humans standing on coral reef
Pacific corals and fish can both smell a bad neighborhood, and use that ability to avoid settling in damaged reefs.
Damaged coral reefs emit chemical cues that repulse young coral and fish, discouraging them from settling in the degraded habitat, according to new research. The study shows for the first time that coral larvae can smell the difference between healthy and damaged reefs when they decide where to settle.
Coral reefs are declining around the world. Overfishing is one cause of coral collapse, depleting the herbivorous fish that remove the seaweed that sprouts in damaged reefs. Once seaweed takes hold of a reef, a tipping point can occur where coral growth is choked and new corals rarely settle.
The new study shows how chemical signals from seaweed repel young coral from settling in a seaweed-dominated…
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