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26 March 2022.
Introduction:
Due to climate change, the oceans are heating up and corals are continuing to bleach which is causing Australia’s Great Barrier Reef’s fish communities to fade and lose their colour, according to a new study.
Overview:
- This study has been published in Global Change Biology.
- Dr Hemingson at James Cook University, Queensland, Australia led this newly published study.
- This recently published study has monitored the changes seen in the fish communities’ colouration as well as their living environment.
- According to the researchers, the fish communities’ colour diversity is linked to the local environment’s composition.
Which areas contained fish species with bright colourations?
The study revealed that areas that had a higher concentration of structurally complex corals housed species of fish with more bright and diverse colourations.
Impact of environmental change
- Due to global environmental change, the relationship between the colouration of the Great Barrier Reef’s fish communities and the environment is being impacted.
- Links have been found by researchers between fish and corals that are constantly losing their natural colour.
- The green and yellow fish population has dropped at a steady pace by around three quarters over the past 27 years.
- After the 1998 global coral bleaching event, fish communities’ colouration fell significantly.
Recent reports about the Great Barrier Reef
- According to recent reports, bleaching has again occurred in the Great Barrier Reef with higher-than-average ocean temperatures is being a constant threat to them. Surveillance flights have revealed that minor to severe bleaching has occurred due to heat.