By Sara gates, Source: Huffington Post

Caribbean coral reefs are in critical danger, but a group of fish might be able to save them.

In a new report published this week, the International Union for Conservation of Nature warns that a majority of coral reefs in the Caribbean will disappear in the next 20 years. Corals in the region have already declined by more than 50 percent since 1970, authors note.

Drawing from more than 35,000 surveys of Caribbean reefs conducted between 1970 and 2012, a team of experts from the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network detailed the drastic decline of the reef and highlighted threats to the delicate ecosystem. The largest threat, it seems, is not climate change, but the loss of a particular type of marine life.

“We saw that reefs with no grazers ended up getting smothered by algae. And after a period of time they see a significant or even complete collapse of the reef area,” Carl Gustaf Lundin, director of IUCN’s Global Marine and Polar Program, told BBC News.

As authors write in the report, the population of parrotfish — and other grazers, such as sea urchins, that consume algae and contribute to the health of tropical reefs — has decreased significantly, primarily due to overfishing and pollution. However, if these types of fish are protected so that their numbers bounce back, Caribbean reefs have a good chance of recovering.

Read more at: Huffington Post