Zoofan
Sun, 13th Jul 2008, 06:49 AM
Did anyone read the July National Geographic with the story on Kingman Reef? If not you should pick it up. It is very interesting and has to make you reconsider what is considered a healthy reef. If you think a reef full of fish is the way it should be then think again.
I think it should make us consider the bioload we put on our reefs. The story points out the slow turn over of biomass in apex predators and the high turn over of small reef fish.
The basic idea is that by removing apex predators the waters become polluted with smaller reef fish causing 10x the bacterial load in the water then a well balanced reef. The pictures of the reef almost look dead when looking for fish life but has coral to make up for it.
There is something to this, the pictures of these reefs are amazing, I have never seen a reef with so many corals.
Mike
I think it should make us consider the bioload we put on our reefs. The story points out the slow turn over of biomass in apex predators and the high turn over of small reef fish.
The basic idea is that by removing apex predators the waters become polluted with smaller reef fish causing 10x the bacterial load in the water then a well balanced reef. The pictures of the reef almost look dead when looking for fish life but has coral to make up for it.
There is something to this, the pictures of these reefs are amazing, I have never seen a reef with so many corals.
Mike