{"id":632,"date":"2014-05-26T13:11:34","date_gmt":"2014-05-26T20:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/?p=632"},"modified":"2016-07-19T12:21:33","modified_gmt":"2016-07-19T19:21:33","slug":"coral-eating-starfish-an-outbreak-of-crown-of-thorns-starfish-in-kiribati","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/2014\/05\/26\/coral-eating-starfish-an-outbreak-of-crown-of-thorns-starfish-in-kiribati\/","title":{"rendered":"Coral-eating starfish: An outbreak of Crown-of-Thorns Starfish in Kiribati"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/iframewidth=640height=360src=\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kyiLgig-vCo?feature=player_detailpageframeborder=0allowfullscreen\/iframe\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kyiLgig-vCo?feature=player_detailpage\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/a><br \/>\nLast year, people in Butaritari Atoll, at the northern end of Kiribati&#8217;s Gilberts Islands began noticing these large spiny starfish depicted in the video above and photo below. The exotic-looking &#8220;crown-of-thorns&#8221; starfish, known as <em>Acanthaster planci<\/em> to scientists and latin-speakers in Brooklyn, is famous for preying on reef-building corals. Outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish can lead to drops in the amount of living coral on reefs, as has happened in places as varied as the Middle East and the Great Barrier Reef.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_633\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/files\/2014\/05\/TRW013-starfish-small.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-633\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-633\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/files\/2014\/05\/TRW013-starfish-small-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"COTs off Betio, Tarawa\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/files\/2014\/05\/TRW013-starfish-small-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/files\/2014\/05\/TRW013-starfish-small-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-633\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crown of Thorns Starfish off Betio, Tarawa (S. Donner)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Kiribati outbreak spread south to the central atolls of Abaiang and Tarawa over the past year. I filmed the shaky video above while conducting a coral reef survey in a, hmm, fast-flowing channel between the open ocean and the Abaiang lagoon (the word &#8216;drift&#8217; is too passive to describe this dive; it was more of a &#8216;raging river&#8217;, &#8216;don&#8217;t hit anything&#8217; or &#8216;I hope the boat can find us&#8217; dive).<\/p>\n<p>In the video, you can see the crown-of-thorns damage looks a lot like coral bleaching. One key difference is the spatial pattern. With a crown-of-thorns outbreak, as in the video, you often see isolated patches of whitened corals or large white circles on otherwise healthy looking mound or table corals.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re not absolutely sure what initiated this particular outbreak or any other outbreak for that matter. Marine scientists generally suspect that over-exploitation of the few predators of the crown-of-thorns, like triton or &#8216;conch&#8217; shells, is the most likely cause of such outbreaks. It is also possible that nutrient pollution can indirectly promote the spread of the starfish through increased survival of their larvae. I hope that, if funding allows, we can at least track the long-term effect of the outbreak on the coral reefs of the island chain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year, people in Butaritari Atoll, at the northern end of Kiribati&#8217;s Gilberts Islands began noticing these large spiny starfish depicted in the video above and photo below. The exotic-looking &#8220;crown-of-thorns&#8221; starfish, known as Acanthaster planci to scientists and latin-speakers &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/2014\/05\/26\/coral-eating-starfish-an-outbreak-of-crown-of-thorns-starfish-in-kiribati\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18515,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[895532,1208],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dispatches","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18515"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":639,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions\/639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maribo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}