MIAMI – There are many efforts underway to save Southeast Florida’s coral reef system, which is under attack from both man and nature, but many don’t realize how a very small creature is a big part of that effort.
For many years, these spiny, and somewhat creepy looking creatures called ‘sea urchins’ were the bane of divers, snorkelers and swimmers.
“The spines are very long very sharp and if you weren’t watching where you were going or walking you could easily get poked by one of those spines,” said Lad Akins, Curator of Marine Conservation and Boat Captain of the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science in Miami.
But they serve a very important function; sea urchins graze on the algae that competes with the corals in our reef system.
Until the early 80′s, they were one of the most abundant reef organisms throughout the Caribbean region... then...
“In 1983 there was a die off; we believe it was a pathogen that came through the Panama Canal and in less than a year the sea urchin population declined by 95 to 97% throughout all of the Caribbean, including South Florida,” Akins said.
The density has dropped so drastically that sea urchins can no longer reproduce naturally.
“So without the urchin the algae has free reign and can grow wild just like weeds in the yard and they can overtake a reef area,” he said.
That’s why scientists at the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science are dedicated to a sea urchin re-population program.
“So we’re taking sea urchins into the lab and we’re artificially inducing spawning in the lab setting where we can take the sperm and eggs mix them together,” Akins said.
Akins and his colleagues are still in the early stages of the lab-based spawning effort but hopes for success are high.
“Once we perfect this and we’re sure we can get successful spawning runs, those urchins will be reared and placed back out on our reef areas,” he said.
Within the next year, the Frost Science team expects to release lab-reared sea urchins back out onto our coral reefs, once again providing the natural protection our eco-system so desperately needs.