Scientists brought life back to a reef....

...and what they used really caught my attention.
They used sound.
Who knew?

So they use the sound of healthy coral to trick fish to the dead coral, and ....surprise....some fish stayed.

A team of scientists from the UK and Australia teamed up to use underwater loudspeakers to try and entice fish back to dead coral reefs and potentially help them recover. By replicating the sounds of healthy reefs, according to a study recently published in Nature Communications, the scientists used a process called “acoustic enrichment.”

They placed loudspeakers on patches of dead coral in the Great Barrier Reef and discovered that twice as many fish arrived — and stayed — compared to equivalent patches where no sound was played.

fox6now.com...

The study, published in Nature in November, was conducted by Australian and British researchers over six weeks in late 2017 near Lizard Island, an island on the Great Barrier Reef. The researchers wanted to take a look at how they could draw fish back to dead or degraded coral reefs, which had become silent due to sea life migrating away from them. The plan was to use underwater speakers to bring the sound of a healthy reef back to the decrepit seascapes in order to trick fish and sea life into returning.

www.gizmodo.com.au...

Some background
Bringing coral reefs back from the brink

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

I read about this recently.
Positive reinforcement. Who would have thought. . .

a reply to: randomtangentsrme
I think we know so little about how the world works, really.

Amazing someone thought of this.
I know nature sounds are used by people to relax and fall asleep.
I also imagine sounds are used to lure animals for variouscreasons, some not so positive.

HOPE it works.... wouldn't that be great

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Wow that is awesome! Definitely chalk one up for science eh!

God job and glad to HEAR it!

SnF

Really wonderful and encouraging results...now this is Good Science !

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Hey that makes me think about the screw noises underwater and if they are related to weakening reefs.

But..I think it is not as bad as throwing an anchor on the reef-roof and prying it out again.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

I have the impression there is much about sound and its interaction with nature that we do not understand.

Cheers

Go on, I'll be the devils advocate, again.
Fish do not a reef make. A reef is a living organism. when it's dead, it's dead and no amount of fish can bring it back.
A reef that has a bit of life could, in the right conditions, be recovered. But not by fish.
You must understand why there is a lot of marine life around healthy reefs. It is not for the reef. Marine creatures use the reef as a nursery, a hiding place, but most of all for food.
So if the fish have been fooled into returning to a dead reef they wont stay long because a dead reef is not food, no food, they will leave to find it.

originally posted by: Oleandra88
a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Hey that makes me think about the screw noises underwater and if they are related to weakening reefs.

But..I think it is not as bad as throwing an anchor on the reef-roof and prying it out again.

Good point. Bad noises certainly scare wildlife above ground.

From the 'Science Daily' article

This diversity in fish could play a crucial part in helping the coral recover — with each species playing different roles and functions in the complicated aquatic ecosystem.

Sounds very promising to me.

I had to look this up.

Cause fish don't have ears per say.

But they do have some ear parts.

I guess if it works. It works.

originally posted by: crayzeed
Go on, I'll be the devils advocate, again.
Fish do not a reef make. A reef is a living organism. when it's dead, it's dead and no amount of fish can bring it back.
A reef that has a bit of life could, in the right conditions, be recovered. But not by fish.
You must understand why there is a lot of marine life around healthy reefs. It is not for the reef. Marine creatures use the reef as a nursery, a hiding place, but most of all for food.
So if the fish have been fooled into returning to a dead reef they wont stay long because a dead reef is not food, no food, they will leave to find it.

This ^^. All they have done is shown that you can lure fish, not revive a reef. The coral didn't die because fish left. Now, the structure of a dead reef is still good to have as a foundation. Lots of microfauna have an environment to land and regrow, but reefs grow and establish themselves from the smallest things to the larger things, not the other way around. Fish are the final piece of the puzzle, not the first.

a reply to: crayzeed

Agreed, they make it sound a little bit like, just because fish are being lured back to a healthy sounding reef, all is going to be good.

A reef is a complicated and just luring fish is not going to cut it. But wait a few journeys around the sun and you will see this being used for fishery.

If it is not already.

Modern science seems to be recognizing the significance of sound when dealing with wildlife lately. It reminds me of the singing plants.



These guys show how it can be done:



So, it's con




Science has not yet accepted the experiments though.

"Plants have their real sounds and do not need humans to give them fake sounds and say that these are plant's voices," says Gagliano, of the "singing plants" phenomenon. "I could hook you up onto one these multimetres. What if I told you that the sound obtained by translating your electrical impedance was your voice? It would be immediately clear that that is not your voice but a mere sonification of your electrical impedance — nothing to do really with your actual voice or sound."

So, by all means, go to a plant concert — but know that the real voices of plants are much more mysterious than we yet know.

science.howstuffworks.com...

originally posted by: crayzeed
Go on, I'll be the devils advocate, again.
Fish do not a reef make. A reef is a living organism. when it's dead, it's dead and no amount of fish can bring it back.
A reef that has a bit of life could, in the right conditions, be recovered. But not by fish.
You must understand why there is a lot of marine life around healthy reefs. It is not for the reef. Marine creatures use the reef as a nursery, a hiding place, but most of all for food.
So if the fish have been fooled into returning to a dead reef they wont stay long because a dead reef is not food, no food, they will leave to find it.

My first thought

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Here is one Beautiful Video

www.youtube.com...

13 Nov 2019

Beige Reef - Presented By Dr Jennifer Marohasy