Parrotfish for Dinner Puts Coral at Risk

LONDON (Reuters) - The delicate balance of the Caribbean’s coral reefs is in jeopardy as more parrotfish end up on dinner plates, international scientists said on Wednesday.

The colorful grazing fish, named for their parrot-like beaks which are used to scrape up algae, play a vital role in stopping seaweed from smothering coral. But their numbers are now being threatened by over-fishing.

New research based on computer modeling shows parrotfish are a key defense in preventing the vulnerable Caribbean reefs from becoming a very different ecosystem — one dominated not by living coral but by blooms of algae or seaweed.

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