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Crown Of Thorns Case Study

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Crown Of Thorns Case Study
Ever since the 1960’s, The Crown of Thorns Starfish have been destroying our magnificent Great Barrier Reef. Biotic factors are a major consideration of the outbreak of the Crown of Thorns, lack of predators and their high fertilization rate plays a massive role in this overwhelming amount of starfish. The main predator the COT meets is the giant triton snail1. But because of recent population problems making the predators lacking in numbers they have no way of reducing the crown of thorns population. The fertilization rate for the starfish is higher than ever, each releasing 60 million eggs per year during mating season2. As long as a male is at least 20 metre away there is 70% chance of fertilization. The Abiotic factor included are, water …show more content…
The present seems to be coming will many better solutions which are currently on their way. The main goal is to preserve the coral cover and learn as much as possible regarding the current outbreak we are currently experiencing. As well as creating and testing improved ways to find the COTS and get rid of this parasite. This may seem like an uplifting thought, that maybe somehow we can learn to control the Crown of Thorns and figure out one solution to mix the rapid occurring problem. But until then, we are left with what seems like no coral and no life for all the underwater species. Until we can fully understand just what is occurring to make this outbreak happen progress in the future remains hopeful but slow.
Overall I think that in the future the Great Barrier Reef will become nothing, I believe that over time the population of the Crown of Thorns Starfish will overwhelm the reef to the point of no coral. The outbreak rate whilst does have some low points has continued to stay high. They may be creating new inventions, and studying the COTS a lot more but all of this takes time, and time is not something that we have at the rate that they are
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