Scientists working to restore the Great Barrier Reef to its previously healthy state have found that juveniles can be attracted to degraded reefs by using speakers to play the sound of healthy reefs, according to SlackGear. The team calls the technology "acoustic enrichment" and thinks it could be a valuable tool to help restore damaged coral reefs. Underwater speakers are placed along the reef and healthy reef recordings are played in degraded coral reefs.
The team found that when playing sound, twice as many fish arrived and stayed on the reef than in areas where no sound was played. The team said fish are critical to the reef's function as a healthy ecosystem.
One way to help reefs in their natural recovery process is to increase fish populations. The sound generated by the new technology disappears when coral reefs are quieted by degradation. The team said healthy reefs are "very noisy places" where many sounds together make up the bioscape.
The team said the juveniles are attracted to those sounds and go to them to feed. When coral reefs degenerate, they become a very quiet place. And they found that the speakers once again attracted juveniles. The study found that playing healthy reef sounds doubled the number of fish reaching reef habitat.
In addition, the experiment increased the number of species that existed by 50 percent. Diversity includes species in various parts of the food web, including herbivores, detritus, zooplankton, and predatory predators. The different fish on the reef provide different functions for the reef and are necessary for a healthy ecosystem.
Editor-in-charge: Tao Zongyao