Who's eating cauliflower coral? The flow-on effects of an endangered coral

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-11-16 00:01

Australia; NSW; QLD

CC: 2.0 USFWS - Pacific RegionFollow Cauliflower coral (Pocillopora meandrina), French Frigate Shoals. A Cauliflower coral colony (Pocillopora meandrina) inhabiting the coral reef within Shark Island lagoon (French Frigate Shoals), part of the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge and the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. Image credit: Mark Sullivan, USFWS https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/5756512497

Aussie researchers have looked into the role of the endangered Dendronepthya australis cauliflower coral as a source of food and shelter for many species up and down our coasts. They found that while we don't directly eat the fish that require the cauliflower corals, the bigger fish such as yellowfin bream that eat those little fish are commercially important. The researchers say the implications of the current rapid decline of these corals will have a flow-on effect to the wider marine food web, and we need to move quickly to implement management actions to ensure the cauli-corals don't disappear from our coasts.

Media release

From:

Journal/
conference: Marine and Freshwater Research

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: The University of Newcastle

Funder: Part of this project was funded by a Central Coast Council Protection of the Environment Trust Project Grant 2017.

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