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I know I said that soft coral are just booger that can eat light, but it turns out they can actually do a lot more than that!
Check out my open access paper that was just published (last night!) to learn all about soft corals and anemones. a thread (1/7): http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmars.2020.00590/full?&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&field=&journalName=Frontiers_in_Marine_Science&id=542522
Check out my open access paper that was just published (last night!) to learn all about soft corals and anemones. a thread (1/7): http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmars.2020.00590/full?&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&field=&journalName=Frontiers_in_Marine_Science&id=542522
soft corals and anemones are amazing - they provide food and shelter to a TON of different marine animals.
See those bite marks in picture a? Apparently some fish enjoy a boogery snack
2/7
Picture d was taken by @johnwturnbull, and picture c by Steve Childs.
See those bite marks in picture a? Apparently some fish enjoy a boogery snack
2/7Picture d was taken by @johnwturnbull, and picture c by Steve Childs.
Unfortunately, soft corals and anemones are under threat. Humans are, unfortunately, the main cause of those threats. They can be entangled in fishing line, smothered by dredging, pulled up by trawlers, and bleached by warming oceans caused by climate change. 3/7
Stopping threats to soft corals and anemones has be to our #1 priority in conserving them, but what do we do in places where the damage has already been done?
1. We need to stop further damage. No saying "well, it's already messed up, too late now!"
2. We can restore! 4/7
1. We need to stop further damage. No saying "well, it's already messed up, too late now!"
2. We can restore! 4/7
Restoration seems like a huge, big, massive thing, and it can be. But there are 3 main types of restoration, depending on how badly damged the area is, and all require different effort. These three types are taken from the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) framework. 5/7
Soft corals and anemones are particularly challening to transplant for restoration because they are 1) highly understudied, and 2) soft and squishy. Have you ever tried to glue a booger to a rock? There has been a bit of work on how to do this, but we urgently need more! 6/7
Please check out the hard work put in by myself and my co-authors, I'm happy to chat soft corals and anemones any day! 7/7
