On an island chain in the middle of the Indian Ocean lies an invaluable treasure: “white gold.” While it may not be a gem to proposition a prospective fiancée with, it does protect the ocean’s most biodiverse ecosystem: coral reefs. Casey Benkwitt, a research fellow at Lancaster University in the U.K., says she couldn’t be more thrilled about it. “It’s exciting to learn and show something new about the world that we didn’t know before,” Benkwitt says. “Seabird poop is really good for the islands and the coral reefs around them.” That’s right: poop. Corals absorb nutrients from this treasure trove of guano and it builds their resilience, according to Benkwitt and her team’s recently published paper in Science Advances. Benkwitt and her field assistants rise with the sun, take a small plastic boat to their study site, and disappear into a tropical lagoon for the day to make observations and collect coral samples. Image courtesy of Casey Benkwitt. “Corals grow about twice as fast where there are seabirds present compared to areas where we’ve lost seabirds to invasive rats that eat and destroy their populations,” Benkwitt says. From 2018-2021, Benkwitt and her team discovered that increased seabird-derived nutrients doubled coral growth rates and accelerated the recovery of corals in the Acropora genus after bleaching events to less than four years. Within a short period of time, they saw how seabird droppings helped coral reefs become more resilient. Coral SOS Most active at night, corals share a life cycle similar…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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