NUTRIENT run-off from farmland is triggering invasions of crown-of-thorns starfish that munch their way through coral in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Researchers have found the first clear evidence that water pollution, rather than overfishing or natural causes, is to blame.
Records of crown-of-thorns population booms date back to the early 1960s. Since then, there has been a boom approximately every 15 years, causing widespread coral damage. To home in on the cause of the outbreaks, Glenn De’ath of the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville, Queensland, and his colleagues looked at the influence of chlorophyll levels in reef waters,…
