Southern Great Barrier Reef coral bleaching event becoming the most severe on record

The latest mass coral bleaching event across the Southern Great Barrier Reef is shaping up to be the most severe and widespread on record. Scientists are raising the alarm about the unseen casualties of the environmental disaster. Researchers at One Tree Island on Queensland’s southern reef say a range of fish species are likely to be hit hard by the heat. “There are fishes and other invertebrates like crustaceans and worms and bacteria, that form an important part of the system here,” said USYD Research Associate Dr John Turnbull. “The butterfly fish for example, we’re expecting those to fall away unfortunately and then there’s a flow-on effect for the animals that live within the corals because they’re used to living within live healthy corals and they can’t find them and so they have to settle for poorer places to live.”