Killing Rats Could Save Coral Reefs (bbc.co.uk)

The much maligned rat is not a creature many would associate with coral reefs. But scientists studying reefs on tropical islands say the animals directly threaten the survival of these ecosystems. From a report: A team working on the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean found that invasive rats on the islands are a "big problem" for coral reefs. Rats decimate seabird populations, in turn decimating the volume of bird droppings -- a natural coral fertiliser. The findings are published in Nature. Scientists now advocate eradicating rats from all of the islands to protect these delicate marine habitats.

Comments

Re:Is "fertilizer" the problem

[vtcodger]

Corals are in fact animals. But they keep dinoflagellate symbionts that are plants. The exact relationship between the coral animals and the zooantha is a bit unclear, but the relationship is apparently beneficial to both.