{"id":466789,"date":"2010-03-24T09:13:55","date_gmt":"2010-03-24T13:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3228"},"modified":"2010-03-24T09:13:55","modified_gmt":"2010-03-24T13:13:55","slug":"life-like-aquariums-could-endanger-fla-reefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/466789","title":{"rendered":"Life-like aquariums could endanger Fla. reefs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/03\/23\/science\/23aquarium.html?partner=rss&amp;emc=rss\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/images\/2010\/03\/23\/science\/23aquarium-span\/23aquarium_CA0-articleLarge.jpg\" width=\"424\" align=\"left\" height=\"254\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/eenews.net\/Greenwire\/2010\/03\/23\/16\/\" >Greenwire<\/a>: For the estimated 700,000 saltwater aquarium tanks in the United  States, it is not enough to just have a bubbly treasure chest and a  plastic diver. Most owners are creating small-scale <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eoearth.org\/article\/Coral_reef\">reef ecosystems<\/a>,  with living coral, anemones, shrimp, sea urchins, crabs and snails. The  market for those creatures and other reef life is booming, especially  among the licensed collectors in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eoearth.org\/article\/Ecoregions_of_Florida_%28EPA%29\">Florida<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But scientists warn that this kind of collecting could pose a threat  to the real ecosystems. While collecting live coral has obvious  ecological impact, researchers also say that removing invertebrates,  which clean and control pests, could make the fishery unsustainable.  Researchers say if the populations of invertebrate grazers and  herbivores drop, the reef could get overwhelmed by algae.<\/p>\n<p>Jessica McCawley, a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife  Conservation Commission, said collectors are a &#8220;special type of  fisherman. They&#8217;re very concerned about the environment and the  sustainability of the fishery.&#8221; Collectors point out that in their work,  they have studied the flow of the invertebrate populations and are  careful not to disturb the ecosystem.<\/p>\n<p>There is no question that the Florida reef has changed in the past  two decades, coinciding with the rise in reef tanks. In 1994, six  species in the top 15 were collected and sold for their ecological  roles. By 2007, that number was up to nine, including 700,000 turbonella  snails and 2.4 million blue-legged crabs.<\/p>\n<p>Reef tanks include home and office tanks, often with intricate  displays by serious collectors or scientists. A paper in the open-access  journal <em>PLoS ONE<\/em> earlier this year found that the number of  organisms collected for tanks increased by about 13 percent per year  between 1994 and 2007 as collectors sought a more genuine environment  (Henry Fountain, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/03\/23\/science\/23aquarium.html?partner=rss&amp;emc=rss\" ><em>New  York Times<\/em><\/a>, March 22). <strong>&#8211; JP<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"akst_link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3228&amp;akst_action=share-this\"  title=\"E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc.\" id=\"akst_link_3228\" class=\"akst_share_link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Share This<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greenwire: For the estimated 700,000 saltwater aquarium tanks in the United States, it is not enough to just have a bubbly treasure chest and a plastic diver. Most owners are creating small-scale reef ecosystems, with living coral, anemones, shrimp, sea urchins, crabs and snails. The market for those creatures and other reef life is booming, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4055,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-466789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4055"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}