The world is changing a lot due to climate change. Scientists are trying their best to understand this change and its impact. Australian scientists were surprised when they were studying sea urchins. These organisms destroy the conditions of marine life and are considered a threat to the environment. It is not easy to destroy them because till now it was believed that only lobsters eat their smaller types. But during their research, in the new video, scientists saw that by eating big urchins, sharks can be helpful in eliminating them.
Urchin’s serious problem
The East Australian Current is becoming stronger due to global warming. This is pushing tropical waters and many of the species that live in them further south. Due to this, the situation is becoming such that the number of marine life has started increasing here. It is home to a diverse group of sea urchins that have steadily destroyed the lush seagrass meadows of south-east Australia’s temperate reefs, turning the diverse and valuable ecosystem into a terrifying urchin wasteland.
What did scientists want to find out?,
The search for a solution to this problem inspired scientists to conduct a new study, the results of which they did not expect. One of the few species that prey on urchins is the eastern rock lobster, Sagmariacus verroxi. They eat the native short-spined urchin, Heliosidaris erythrogramma, but it is not clear how involved they are in the fight against the long-spined urchin, Centrostephanus rogersii. So a team led by Jeremy Day, an ecologist at Newcastle University, wanted to find out just how useful companions these prawns are.
Urchins spoil the living areas of the surrounding creatures, hence they are considered dangerous for the environment. (Symbolic photo: Canva)
Special place chosen for research
Their experiment off the coast of Wollongong, a city on the south-east coast of Australia, monitored 100 sea urchins (half short-spined, half long) that were tied outside a known prawn den. The researchers chose a rocky overhang 5 to 8 meters deep in the reef, where the nocturnal prawns lurk during the day.
Preparation for special recording
For 25 nights, they recorded the carnage with GoPro cameras. “’Tethering’ is the way urchins are surgically restrained to remain available for hunting throughout the night and within sight of our cameras. “We used red-filtered light to film the experiments because invertebrates do not like the white light spectrum,” says Day. The footage revealed that the prawns actually had no interest in the long-spined urchins.
Scientists wanted to know how effective lobsters are in killing urchins by eating them. (Symbolic photo: Canva)
Which predatory creature was that?,
However, there is another predator who is eating them even more happily. This information was very unique and quite surprising for the scientists. “Shrimps are considered the ‘main’ urchin predators that control much of the urchin population, whereas sharks are not typically considered in urchin predator models,” says Day. “The important thing is that sharks can easily catch very large sea urchins.”
Big Urchin Hunt
Crested horn sharks (Heterodontus galeatus) accounted for 82 percent of the long-spined urchins captured on camera and nearly half of the total prey. They were also willing to chew on mature urchins more than 12 centimeters (about 5 inches) in diameter. They were considered largely free from hunting. This is important when mature urchins cause the most damage.
So far, there has been scant evidence of predators capable of handling very large urchins in the video. The crested horned shark has appeared to be a welcome ally in conservation management efforts. This shows the importance of large predators in maintaining the balance of an ecosystem.
Tags: Bizarre news, Science, science facts, science news, Weird news
FIRST PUBLISHED: October 12, 2024, 15:24 IST
