55 ecology

Now listen to part of a lecture on this topic in an ecology class. Thishappened a few years back. There was this healthy coral reef in the PacificOcean, how gorgeous coral reefs are with all the red, pink, and orange. And ithad a huge variety of species of fish and plants that it protected and providedwith food. Then the sea water got polluted, because the ship spilled a largeamount of diesel fuel. The pollution caused a species of fish to die out. Thisfish that died out used to eat a particular type of ocean plant called algae.

Now if there aren't any fish to eat algae, the algae will grow out ofcontrol. There will be too much allergy which is very bad for coral. But thatdid not happen to this coral reef. Know why it didn't happen. Because therewere still many other species left that ate that same algae, even though thealgae increased at first. So did the population of the other fish species whoate the algae? Because there was more algae for them to eat. The other species tookover for the fish that died out. And eventually, the coral reef looked aboutthe same as before.

Now, think about what would have happened to this coral reef. If there hadnot been a wide variety of different fish species. If that one species of fishthat ate algae had died off, you can imagine soon the whole coral reef wouldhave been covered in algae.