How big of a problem do you think Crown of Thorn Stars are?

[clamm]

We all have heard of the problems basket stars are causing reefs. How serious of and issue do you think this is? Can anything be done about it? Is this just part of nature or has man aided their propagation?

Hopefully, we can get some interesting discussions going.

 

[clamm]

Wow those are very so good at IT.

"COTS have an extraordinary life cycle history and reach sexual maturity in 2-3 years. The female can produce over 100 million eggs in a single breeding season. If COTS are within one metre of each other, up to 90% of the female's eggs can be successfully fertilised during a simultaneous spawning event. "

Source: http://www.apex-environmental.com/CoralHealthIndicators.html#COTS

 

[Chuck Spyropulos]

I saw a show on this last week on the Science Channel. The COTS has been around for 1000s of years without a problem. In fact it used to provide a way for slower coral to grow by eating the fast growing staghorn coral.

According to the show, the real problem is the farming industry on the coast of Australia. The farmers put down fertilizer and the runoff from the streams and rivers into the ocean cause the nutrient level on the reeds to increase. This in turn causes hughe algae blooms that nourish the COTS larvae and cause an inordinate number of them to reach maturity. If it were not for the elevated nutrient level, less COTS larvae would reach maturity and there would be less damage to the Great Barrier Reef.

Right now the problem is so bad the a COTS dive team works 24 hours a day killing the starfish and they still are not making a dent in the population...a real serious problem.

 

[tucc185]

I would have to say that a lot of these 'crises' have to be viewed with a critical eye. In the course of evolution, wouldn't this be just another 'adapt or die' situation? Major events like this have been happening for millions, perhaps billions of years, and each time, it just paves the way for more diversity. Eventually, the crown of thorns stars will be out of a good portion of their food, the population will crash, and in the place of all the corals they mowed down, other corals will move in to take up that valuable living space. It may change the shape & make up of the reefs, and it's certainly unpleasant to watch these magnificent corals get eaten, but nature is harsh, and there's nothing we can do to change it's methods. P.S. read 'No Turning Back' by Richard Ellis for a good outlook on extinction.

 

[clamm]

Chuck, I saw the same show, tivo caught it...it?s why I posted this thread. Its really interesting because nature is one thing but catastrophes such as the cots in the numbers there currently are seems to have been accelerated, as the show suggests by man.

I?m not a tree hugger or anything, but what I learned on the film was amazing, just the numbers of those thing. Divers go down and take out thousands a day and that doesn't put a dent in them. Too bad they weren't good for something else.

 

[Brian]

tucc185, I was just debating this very same issue last night... I like to play devil's advocate and was talking with some friends about global warming and the extinction of some species and it struck me, how is the impact of humans any different than natural selection? I know the human impact is much broader than most natural factors but it's still no different is it? Life evolves to changing environmental conditions or it ceases to exist, that's the natural way of things so is it then against nature to try and save the reefs from the COTS or farmer's pollutants etc??? Now please bare in mind I'm just playing devil's advocate here so don't start flaming me as eco terrorist or something

 

[NateHanson]

Brian, I agree that you can argue that humans are a natural part of the environment, and our impact is just another factor that contributes to the well-being or destruction of various sensitive ecotypes. But our rational decisions to preserve the reefs are just as natural as our neglect and destruction of them.

What I'm saying is, we're going to have an impact on the natural world because we are undeniably a huge factor on the state of the environment all over the world, and that's perfectly "natural". But it's absolutely in our best interest to do our best to mitigate the damages our species inflicts on diverse biological communities like rainforests and reefs (to name two overused but very valid examples). Rich ecotypes like that have so many natural resources that we have yet to understand, or in many cases, to even discover. If we continue killing species in these areas as quickly as we are now, we aren't just screwing the beetles and the ecotourists, we're screwing ourselves out of potential live-saving medicines discovered in those forests or reefs, biological controls for pests we have, environmental scrubbers to clean up our polluted urban air, and all kinds of benefits we can't even begin to imagine because we have yet to come across them.

It can be just as self-interested and self-serving to perserve reefs and rainforests as it is to do nothing and watch industrialization completely wipe them out. And it's no less "natural" of us to undo our human damage, as it is for us to inflict that damage in the first place, so I reject the idea that we're interfering with "natural selection" by trying to mitigate the rapid extinctions caused by our industrialization.

Nate

 

[Brian]

I concur Nate, BUT to continue the roll of bad guy for the sake of this discussion: If we look at the way human populations the world over are increasing and the fact that living space and food generating capacity (while not yet reached) is finite, it can be argued that any measures to lessen mans impact on nature (good or bad) is only temporary and that eventually we will bring about the extinction of many if not most of the species on the earth including our own. However, as has been said, from destruction comes new life, once the influencing factor is removed (humans) there will be quite a great deal of room for new species to repopulate and colonize the earth. So perhaps by saving the rainforest and reefs and whales, etc... we're really only holding evolution back, staving off the inevitable for another couple of years.

 

[NateHanson]

I think that's a good way to look at it if you have no interest in humans, but clearly most of us do. If we care most about preservation of our own species (that IS afterall what natural selection is all about, which is where this devils advocate argument originated). So our best way to participate in natural selection, in my opinion, is to preserve ourselves, by preserving our environment. Otherwise I do think we're bound for some pretty ugly population crashes in the future.

Nate

 

[etszoo]

Don't worry, we (humans) will have our own (crown of thorns" epidemic some day. Those who do not learn from the past will not move forward.