Feature Ecosystems

Wanted: Reef Cleaners

Can spiny housekeepers save beleaguered Caribbean corals?

By Janet Raloff

- More than 2 years ago

For millennia, hordes of delicate, nocturnal sea urchins grazed the Caribbean sea

Bleached coral is vulnerable to the algal overgrowth affecting its neighbors. G. Ostrander

Wild adult Diadema collected and transplanted off Florida this summer. A. Szmant

Heavy overfishing of finned grazers, like this parrot fish, left a dearth of backup species to take over coral cleaning after an epidemic killed the urchins.