Europe News Desk!!! Researchers from Israel’s Tel Aviv University found that within a few months a deadly epidemic killed off the entire Black Sea waterfowl population in the Red Sea’s Gulf of Aqaba. The situation is unprecedented in the entire documented history of the Gulf, whose shores include Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, researchers said Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported. The disappearance of Black Sea urchins threatens to destroy the bay’s coral reefs, because the urchins feed on algae and prevent them from capturing and suffocating corals that compete with them for sunlight, they Warned.
The researchers predict that entire populations of these sea urchins in both the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea will soon become sick and die, as widespread mortality has already been observed off the coasts of Greece and Turkey. The research team sent an urgent report describing the situation to the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, calling for a broodstock black sea urchin population to be established, so that they could be returned to nature if necessary. Researchers believe that the source of the deadly epidemic is a pathogenic ciliated parasite that has spread from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.
–IANS
World News Desk!!!
SGK