Can 'Reef DJs' Bring Fish Back to Damaged Reefs?

When fish abandon unhealthy coral reefs, the whole ecosystem can collapse -- but new research shows that playing sounds from healthy reefs can lure fish back, helping stabilize the reef. Learn how in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren Voge obamb here. The past century hasn't been kind
to coral reefs. These delicate, complex, important ecosystems have been
hit hard by the environmental changes brought on by the
industrial and digital revolutions. The byproducts of all that industry

(00:22):
and technology, unfortunately include pollution, ocean of cidification and warming
seas due to global climate change, resulting in damaged and
diseased corals and coral reef. Ecosystems perhaps obviously need healthy
corals to function, but corals also need the help of
other organisms, mostly hundreds of species of fish, to remain healthy.

(00:44):
Biodiversity is key to keeping a reef system in balance,
and different species have different jobs on the reef, eating algae, plankton,
other fish, and random crud off the reef. A barrier reef,
like the one off the eastern coast of Australia, gets
its name from the fact that texts the shallow waters
along the shore from the open sea, providing a safe
calm habitat for all kinds of organisms. If a few

(01:07):
of them abandon a reef due to sickly corals, a
few more will decide it's intolerable, and eventually everybody will
abandon ship, resulting in a dead reef. But research published
in November of twenty nineteen in the journal Nature Communications
finds that there might be a solution to the large
scale desertion of coral reefs by fish species playing them

(01:28):
the sweet music of a healthy reef. The studies senior
author is Steve Simpson, Professor of Marine Biology and Global
Change in the Department of Biosciences at the University of Exeter.
He said in a press release, healthy coral reefs are
remarkably noisy places. The crackle of snapping shrimp and the
whoops and grunts of fish combined to form a dazzling

(01:49):
biological soundscape. Juvenile fish home in on these sounds when
they're looking for a place to settle. The research team
conducted their sound experiments on recently erect portions of Australia's
Great Barrier reef. They played recordings of a thriving reef
through loudspeakers in the rebel of once healthy reef habitat,
and found that twice as many fish were attracted to

(02:11):
these damaged reefs as were to similarly run down habitats
where speakers were set up but no sounds were played,
and the fish stuck around for the entire forty days
of the study, even after they figured out that the
party wasn't as cool as advertised, and although attracting fish
to the reef won't automatically bring it back to life
and won't fix the problems it started this whole mess

(02:33):
to begin with, Improving the reef soundscape could be a
useful tool in jump starting degraded reefs. Study co author
Andy Radford, a professor of behavioral ecology in the School
of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol, said in
a press release, acoustic enrichment is a promising technique for
management on a local basis. If combined with habitat restoration

(02:54):
and other conservation measures, rebuilding fish communities in this manner
might accelerate eco system recovery. However, we still need to
tackle a host of other threats, including climate change, over fishing,
and water pollution, in order to protect these fragile ecosystems.

(03:15):
Today's episode was written by Jesselin Shields and produced by
Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radios. Has
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