Aerial view of natural Great Barrier Reef in Queensland. Photo Credit: Gagliardi Giovanni/REDA&CO/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

AnimalsEnvironment Australia10. December 2021

Here’s How Just the Sound of an Ocean Can Help Restore Marine Ecosystems

Research collected from multiple scientists over the course of the last few years shows that the sound of a healthy ocean has the potential to help rebuild marine ecosystems. 

Following the cyclones of 2014 and 2015 as well as the massive bleaching event of 2016 which ravaged the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, marine biologist Stephen Simpson and graduate student Timothy Gordon set out to restore reefs. They discovered placing recordings of a healthy ocean sparked twice as many fish to settle on the reefs. “We found that we could actually start to rebuild the reef community,” Simpson says. 

In other research performed by a graduate student from the University of Adelaide in Australia, Brittany Williams also found that oyster larvae were twice as likely to attach to an ecosystem where a recording of a restored reef was played. Healthy oceans are full of noise, and new research shows that young creatures in particular are instinctively attracted to where noise emanates. Audio playback may just be the tool needed to speed up the restoration of coral reefs and marine ecosystems. 

Source:
Smithsonian

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